Case Study: Principal, India

3CDN Workplace Technology Consultants and Sigma AVIT explain how coherent design philosophy underpinned the AV and IoT system deployment at Principal’s HQ facility in India.

Principal is a Fortune 500 company, headquartered in Ohio, USA, providing insurance, retirement and income solutions. ‘Project Mobius’ is its largest office outside the USA, providing 420,000 square feet of space to serve as Principal’s Indian headquarters. Principal’s leadership in India was keen to use technology to improve the overall employee experience and AV and IoT were to be the linchpin systems towards achieving this.

Mradul Sharma, principal consultant and MD at 3CDN Technology Workplace Consultants, says: “There was a request for proposal [RFP] on the market for which multiple players were in contention. Everyone’s proposal went through technical and commercial evaluation after which we ended up winning the project. Likewise, Sigma AVIT went through a similar process to be appointed the system integrator for the job. We first started work on the AV part of the project and as conversation with the client progressed IoT came into play.”

Speaking with the client helped 3CDN arrive at a design philosophy derived from the client requirements. Sharma details: “This was one of the projects where we had access to the leadership and that had a positive impact on how the project progressed. Principal wanted well-coordinated rooms with cohesive lighting and AV systems. They also wanted to pursue a less is more philosophy and clutter-free tables. All in all, Principal wanted operational excellence from the AV systems and compliance with the standards of the Info-Sec team.”

Elaborating on the topic of standards, Sharma says: “Principal has global standards for standard rooms, driven by their team sitting in the US and broad guidelines around the rest of the spaces such as custom rooms. But the fact that this was meant to be the regional headquarters, rather than a standard fitout, allowed us the leeway to experiment."

Wabi-sabi

We start our exploration of the AV installation at Principal with a look at the asymmetrical videowall located at the entrance of the facility.

Sharma details: “A driving force for the design was ‘wabisabi’ which is the Japanese idea of celebrating imperfection. This brought us to an asymmetrical videowall as the centrepiece of the entrance lobby. Principal wanted to convey this underpinning design philosophy of ‘wabi-sabi’ as soon as you entered the building. The MD of Principal actually took the lead in this regard and sketched the initial design for the videowall at the entrance.”

Sigma AVIT adds: “Translating the sketches from the MD into an actual technical design required CAD impressions and working with volumes and understanding what products are available on the market and what cabinet size would be the best to turn the vision into reality.”

A total of 86 Samsung 2mm LED tiles were selected as the display for the videowall. The video signal transmission is centralised on the rack using Scala 4K video players which are connected to the Scala content management system. Scala also happens to be the global standard for signage and corporate communication for Principal. The output from the Scala players gets processed on Dataton Watchout servers and Samsung boxes take the signal on from here to the video controller.

Installing the videowall was a challenge and Sigma AVIT says: “Obviously, we could not just mount the structure directly onto the wall because of the different interior design elements and technology considerations. The challenge was ensuring that the construction would be able to support the load of the videowall. We had a structural consultant come in and they independently verified our designs and approved our calculations. The entire wall is made up of Korean-laminate material and we essentially sketched the design onto the wall so that we could embed the videowall.”

A team from Samsung flew down from Korea and assisted in the installation of the videowall with its input and expertise.

Functional spaces

As can be expected, Principal ‘Project Mobius’ features a number of meeting spaces with the most prestigious being the boardroom. The display for the boardroom is a Samsung 1.2mm LED videowall measuring 3.2m by 1.8m. Voicelift in the space is provided with the help of Shure MXA910 microphones paired with Biamp DSPs. The ceiling microphones are also used to trigger camera presets based on the active user in the room.

A fully automated system with Crestron control processor at the back-end and Crestron CCS-UC-300 have also been pressed into service.

A certain outcome was desired for the boardroom and all the meeting spaces at Principal and Sharma details: “We had an internal design thinking workshop about videoconferencing and meeting rooms and the use of these spaces, and we came up with the objective of having a ‘10 second start time’ for all meetings. This isn’t something that was a client requirement but rather something that we proposed to them based on our experience working with clients in the corporate sector and the findings from our design thinking workshops. All the AV systems we have deployed in the meeting spaces have been set up to meet this mark.”

From the boardroom, we shift to the HR holding area and cafeteria. Sharma says: “Principal wanted a large, multi-function space and they decided to use the HR holding area and cafeteria for this purpose. The space can open up to become a 607-seat townhouse space and it can also be sectioned into smaller spaces where Principal can conduct onboarding for new employees and other activities.”

Once again, the main display for the HR holding area is a large Samsung 1.2mm LED tile videowall measuring 6.4m by 1.8m with video reinforcement being delivered by 49-in monitors installed on columns.

The cafeteria has dual 135-in projection screens and video reinforcement using 49-in monitors installed on columns.

Distributed digital wireless microphones and ceiling loudspeakers based design handles audio. Catchbox is used as the soft-throwable microphone to enable Q&A sessions with the audience during events.

When it comes to video signal transmission across Principal, the AV professionals met a hurdle. Sharma details: “The reason we did not go with AV over IP across the entire site was because of the limited window of time we had on the project to get Info-Sec approvals from Principal and have them [the AV-over-IP products] sit on on their core network. There just was not enough time during the project for the Info-Sec team to evaluate the Crestron NVX for use and deployment. HDBaseT was the preferred technology for Principal and it has been used extensively. But when it came to the control rooms and the videowalls, Crestron NVX was the most cost-efficient solution to achieve the different layouts and usage scenarios that we had envisioned. So, we were able to employ AV over IP in some small capacity.”

Sitting atop these AV systems is Crestron Fusion, deployed by Sigma AVIT. Sharma details: “This is an extensive AV deployment from the meeting rooms to the boardroom to the cafeteria. Principal wanted to have a way to monitor and manage all these systems and this is where Crestron Fusion comes in. It provides a window for the dedicated AV team to have the capabilities to oversee how all the systems are being used and how they are performing.”

With the project complete, Sigma AVIT reflects back on the project: “When we came on to the project the customer told us that they had a hard deadline as the facility was to be inaugurated on July 1. The designs that we were provided were great and we also communicated to the client the timeframes we would need to do a quality job. But as is the case with any building project, there was slippage and the areas we were meant to work on were not received when they were supposed to. This meant that we were under a time crunch with over 180 rooms to deliver for the client. We went back to the drawing board and had to go floor-by-floor and room-by-room to see how we could meet the deadline. We regrouped and doubled up on manpower and had 35 people on site for close to a month. In the end, we feel that we were able to meet our own internal standards of quality work and as well as the client’s requirements.”

The IoT component

In addition to AV, 3CDN Workplace Technology Consultants also delivered an entire IoT system to help Principal track, monitor and extract the full potential from the technology systems at its disposal.

Edzil Deniz, director at 3CDN, details: “As the discussions around the AV systems were progressing, there was one particular piece of feedback that we were receiving from the different teams and stakeholders. They wanted a single platform to tie together all the various systems so that the user would be able to use them with ease.”

The natural progression of the conversation led 3CDN to a simple solution. Deniz says: “Principal wanted to have a single app which would give them access to the various modules which would correspond to the different technology systems that have been deployed. The conversation started with something very basic, they wanted to be able to control the lighting and the HVAC systems. And as we continued this conversation, we understood that they wanted to have a cafeteria module, attendance module, visitor management module and much more included as well.”

Deniz continues: “The key piece was to look at how we could deliver real-time asset tracking for the situations that the end user was looking at and then translate these into IoT systems that would deliver the functionality required. The solution took the form of an app that is available for Android and iOS platforms. We had to address privacy concerns, so the same functionality is available through web-browsers. And for those who do not have access to an internet connected device on-premises, we have also provided kiosks across the facility.”

Deniz concludes: “The rollout for the IoT system was done in parts as the modules were built. We had the users testing them and giving feedback and insight for improvement. For a system of this kind, 100% enablement of all modules from day one is not possible, so we took a staggered approach to deploying the solution. But I can say that the impact for the end user has been immense. They’ve been able to streamline their processes to benefit not only the employer but the employee as well.”

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