JAK Audio Visual details how it worked closely with the IT department at Ego Pharmaceuticals
to design and deploy an AV system that will meet the client’s present and future needs.
Ego Pharmaceuticals is an
Australian multinational skin care
company with subsidiaries in
Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong
and the United Kingdom, as well
as staff in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Egypt
and Saudi Arabia. When looking to move to a
new ofï¬ ce location in Melbourne, integrator JAK
Audio Visual was hired to provide AV systems for
the facility.
The IT department from Ego Pharmaceuticals
was involved with the project from the start.
Kyle Hoppitt from JAK Audio Visual says: “The
IT department did not know what it wanted in
terms of AV, but they had clear ideas about how
they wanted the systems to operate and work.”
JAK Audio Visual took on the task of
designing, integrating and delivering the AV
systems. Foremost among the requirements was
to have easy to use systems with a high degree
of automation. Hoppitt says: “We designed the
system for Ego Pharmaceuticals and drew up a
lot of schematics to show the concept for the
AV systems we wanted to deploy. Our approach,
which is also our design philosophy, was to have
automated rooms with the least possible amount
of user input.”
He continues: “All the rooms have occupancy
sensors which control the TVs and display
information about the room booking. As soon
as you plug a laptop or input source into the
cable boxes, it appears on the screen. All of this
happens without the user having to directly
interact with AV system.”
Having the IT department involved was a boon.
Not only did it allow for the requirements of the
project to be clearly communicated, it also made
the life of the integrator easier. Hoppitt details:
“We requested a VLAN for the AV systems and
that request was quickly processed. We had this
conversation early on and provided a spreadsheet
of all the devices that will be on the network so
the IT department could plan in advance. They
then provided a list of IP addresses and we used
those to set up the VLAN.”
Furthermore, the integrator was engaged early
in the project and Hoppitt details the beneï¬ ts of
this: “We worked closely with the builder and,
because of the timing of when we were brought
on to the project, we could specify all the Cat6
cabling requirements and the PoE locations we
would need. We handed this information to the
builder and they managed to provide everything
we needed via the electrician. We didn’t have to
get involved with the network infrastructure.”
There are also beneï¬ ts for the end-user when
professionals are engaged early. Hoppitt says:
“When it was time for us to come on site, all the
cabling was in place and we didn’t have to do
much in that respect. That’s good for the client
because you don’t end up paying two companies
to run cabling along the same cable run.”
A Crestron solution was on the cards and
the integrator and the IT department from Ego
Pharmaceuticals made a trip to Crestron’s Sydney
experience centre to gain further understanding
of the technology.
Interestingly, Crestron Fusion was chosen to
be a core component of the AV deployment.
Hoppitt narrates: “The Ego Pharmaceuticals
office has 21 rooms and out of those, eight are AV
enabled. These include four meeting rooms, two
videoconferencing rooms and two training rooms.
The remaining rooms may not have AV systems
but they do have room booking panels which can
be used with Google Calendar. Crestron Fusion
was a part of the project early on due to the
requirement for room booking and then reporting
on AV usage came in as a bonus to that.”
Ego Pharmaceuticals chose an on premise
option for Crestron Fusion. It provided a server
and the integrator, with assistance from Crestron,
installed the requisite Fusion software. While the
option to integrate Fusion with the BMS was
discussed, eventually it was decided to have the
two remain separated.
On the surface, the decision to employ
Fusion seems like overkill but Hoppitt explains:
“Ego Pharmaceuticals has two office sites with
another one on the way. The upside of Crestron
Fusion is that they will be able to connect the
sites with the Fusion servers. They can just scale
the facilities that they have. With the server that
they have at present, they have the capacity to
manage a couple of hundred rooms.”