Case Study – Audio Visual Technology Solutions
AV Technology Solutions - UK Police Force
Business Challenge
As part of the Police New Ways of Working operational and technology strategy, a UK Police force client had a requirement for Audio Visual and Video Conferencing meeting room technologies to be deployed in their refurbished Headquarters building. The key objective of the New Ways of Working programme is to leverage technology investment to provide an agile and flexible working environment for all staff whilst ensuring alignment with the Police National Enabling Programme and the adoption of unified collaboration, Skype for Business enabled, technology sets.
Our Approach
We engaged with the customer stakeholder teams across the Police force estate to define and design a technology suite for meeting rooms and collaboration spaces according to size, capacity and use, with all spaces to meet the same unified and specified standard.
Our Solution
Following acceptance of the technical designs, AJAR Technology worked in partnership with the force’s building contractor to manage, coordinate and administer the project end to end, from supplying and pre-staging technical equipment to the onsite installation and commissioning and future support and maintenance. The scheme comprised:
- Meeting Rooms and Huddle spaces comprising commercial grade large format displays, networked and local PC and Laptop connectivity, video and audio conferencing via the Skype for Business platform, voice reinforcement and presentation and switching systems
- large 140 seater conferencing and briefing space with dual 98” commercial grade displays and control system
- Discrete and Combined open plan areas with meeting room control and automation systems
- Centralised IP Meeting Room Booking management system
- Centralised IPTV and Digital Signage system for internal and customer facing communications across Front of House, Circulation Areas, Lobbies and Secure areas
- End to end supply, installation, configuration, commissioning, project and programme management services
- User induction and Level 1 support training underpinned by a customer defined 3 year Service Level Agreement for support and maintenance services.
The Benefits
AJAR Technology have provided this UK Police Force with a clear and defined technology stack to act as consistent blueprint for Audio Visual and Video Collaboration solutions across the Force. This blueprint serves to underpin the Force-wide roll out of intuitive, user friendly, unified meeting room technologies.
By standardising the technology approach, the user experience in any meeting room or collaboration space across the estate is consistent, ensuring all users are familiar with the technology. Streamlining the systems in this way reduces any user error and consequential lost time, which had been a recurring issue caused by legacy and disparate technologies. This is further enhanced by the use of intuitive meeting room control systems, automating user interaction with the different systems with one button operation to reduce complexity.
The adoption of video and audio conferencing technologies and making use of the Force’s investment in the Microsoft Office and Skype for Business software eco system has led to clear operational, travel time and cost savings. Dispersed and remote staff can continue to communicate and collaborate at any time from any location.
The centralised IP meeting room booking system, integrated with the customer’s Microsoft Outlook and Office 365 platform, provides at a glance, real time meeting room availability and usage information. Staff can book, end or extend a meeting directly from a local meeting room panel or use the Outlook calendar making double bookings and interrupted meetings a thing of the past. Real time meeting room management data provides the Force with full insight into the meeting patterns to optimise meeting room resources, all boosting efficiency.
The Force’s investment in a combined digital signage and IPTV solution enables real time broadcast of dynamic messaging, internal communications and television news services to its personnel and the visiting public. This ensures the effective and efficient transmission of information, driving a Force wide culture of staff and public engagement
By partnering with AJAR Technology, the Force has created a stimulating, smart working environment by implementing centralised audio visual technologies, all of which are scalable and flexible to cater for future deployments in custody suites, police stations, contact centres, operations centres and briefing rooms. The Force has adopted a new, more collaborative and agile way of working by providing all staff with the same, exceptional user experience.
