The new head offices of EXARRO in Centurion are a powerhouse display of integrated AV technologies.
We caught up with Frog AV and Mindstec to learn more about this turnkey solution, which has delivered a world-class AV backbone to the offices of the major mining company.
According to Chris Smith – Principal Architect at EXARRO – “We were looking for a cost-effective integrated solution with ease of use, which could be easily integrated into the Microsoft Office Suite. Previously we had normal, projector-type of boardrooms, and we decided that we want to move away from them due to their quality and the cost of operation. We also specified that connectivity to the equipment in the boardroom must be seamless and wireless, and must enable any type of computer to connect to the equipment.”
“The brief covered an enormous scope. We have a long-standing relationship with EXARRO, and I therefore had a very clear idea of what their vision was for the project – which included a solid installation at their head office in Pretoria that would allow for wireless, online collaboration and video conferencing, which would then be deployed at all of the company’s mines in Mpumalanga and Limpopo on the same network. EXARRO where looking for standardised solution that would operate seamlessly to connect all of its sites.”
Adre’ Pansegrouw’s perspective, the managing director of Frog AV
“With a scope as large as this one, it is a really good idea to use one brand of technology across the project to avoid compatibility issues down the line,” says Adre’ Pansegrouw, MD of Frog AV. “In terms of infrastructure, Crestron is ahead of all of the competition in this respect, because they develop their network management software to serve as a turnkey solution that provides for almost every aspect of AV infrastructure and control.”
Crestron Flex was launched in January 2019. This unified communications and collaboration solutions technology supports any web collaboration application, or natively runs the most popular third-party UC applications, including Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business. After the EXARRO contract was awarded to Frog AV, the team redesigned the system to incorporate this latest Crestron solution, which is based on the award-winning XiO Cloud IoT platform.
In the words of Rupert Denoon, the regional director for Crestron in South Africa, “The modern workplace is fast-paced, flexible and dispersed, and South African businesses need technology that not only keeps up but evolves with the organisation. Crestron’s Flex solutions uncouple hardware and software, which means that an end user will only need to invest in hardware once while being able to switch between a wide variety of software platforms as the need arises. This flexibility goes a long way to allay many of the fears that customers have around being stuck with a single solution or platform despite their changing needs.”
Pansegrouw explains the practical benefits of these latest innovations: “In the past, the licencing for Microsoft was not hosted on the Crestron product. Therefore, people had to walk into a meeting with their Microsoft-licenced notebooks to connect to Skype. The new range from Crestron comes with a room-based codec, with Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams natively embedded. The Crestron Flex range is actually Microsoft-certified, and Crestron is one of the only manufacturers that offer a Microsoft-certified Skype solution for the AV environment. As a result, users can start up a Skype meeting without having to have a computer in the room.”
In addition to all of the building’s rooms being fully automated using Crestron Control, Adre’ delves into the important role of management and monitoring that the solution caters for. “In the past, if I installed a system and something malfunctions, I was able to send an AV technician to the site to establish if it was an audio or video problem, and then troubleshoot a solution.
“Now, all of the client’s AV assets are integrated onto their network structure, and troubleshooting now needs to include the IT team as well as the AV specialists. We installed Crestron Fusion for EXARRO, which enables us to monitor all and manage all of the offices. Crestron Mercury, meanwhile, allows us to monitor usage of all of the rooms and we can use this data for managed maintenance and to assess usage patterns to ensure that resources are deployed in alignment with the company’s real needs and to make informed decisions about the scaling needs of the company over the long term.”
This ability to use AV infrastructure to provide real-time insights into business operations has been further augmented, in EXARRO’s case, by the integration of ServiceNow’s cloud-based digital workflow platforms.
“EXARRO has changed over to the ServiceNow platform to log calls when something is not working properly. Our engineers were able to integrate Crestron Fusion with ServiceNow on the backend – so when something is malfunctioning, the system creates a ticket automatically. We adopted a phased implementation approach at EXARRO’s head office, and future phases will be informed by the data gathered from the first phase of the implementation. As a result, future phases will be informed and optimised by real usage rates.”
“I would also not sell a product, than sell a product form a manufacturer that I don’t trust. If the manufacturer or supplier does not offer solid aftersales service then I cannot pass that level of service on to my client. I have a solid relationship with Crestron, I have full confidence – based on our long-standing relationship with them – that they will go the extra mile to ensure that the end user’s needs a priority.”
Adre’ Pansegrouw, Owner of Frog AV
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