Areas where We've Added Value
We are grateful for the work that our customers have given us. Below are a few examples of areas where we've added value either through Engineering Services, Program Management with Site Development, Cost and Budget Guidance or Organizational Process Improvement. Click on the Smarter Busy Themes below to see specific examples.
Projects
Automating RFDS
Smarter Busy Themes: Automation, Data Integrity
Groups Affected: RF Design
Imagine a system to automatically create new RF Designs. Also used to enforce governance by adding 'checksum' verification layers to reduce the likelihood of human errors. We've created such a system.
Streamlining Competitive Analysis
Smarter Busy Themes: Process Improvement, Big Data Analytics, Automation, Innovation
Groups Affected: Planning, Optimization & Performance
We've built a standardized procedure on how to take in multiple, competitive data to quickly generate standard reports. The end result? Data-driven decisions. This allows teams to go from weeks of analysis to days.
CAPEX Deferral
Smarter Busy Themes: Costs & Spending, Big Data Analytics, Best Practices
Groups Affected: Finance, Optimization & Performance, Market Management, Planning
Looking at multiple data sources to produce never-seen-before insights. This allows our customers to make easy decisions on what their CAPEX spend should REALLY be. The premise is to see what Macro sites are inadvertently serving sites that should be handled by In-Building solutions thus making them candidates to CAPEX deferrals.
Automated Time & Motion
Smarter Busy Themes: Automation, Program Management, Best Practices
Groups Affected: RF Design, Site Development
Enforcing departments to input their time so we can properly understand:
1. How long tasks typically take
2. How many tasks can get accomplished
3. Who are high performers and how can we get them to share their secrets to improve the less experienced engineers
4. How can we create the discipline of analyzing data for the sake of continuous improvement
Forecast Accuracy
Smarter Busy Themes: Costs & Spending, Process Improvement, Data Integrity, Best Practices, Innovation
Groups Affected: Finance, Site Development, RF Design
A system that forces standards and behaviors is the solution to creating data that allows cross-correlation to multiple systems. The end result? An ability to regain control of FULLY UNDERSTANDING the dollars coming in, the dollars Spent or the dollars about to be spent. Instead of being millions of dollars off with forecasting, they can finally say they have FORECAST ACCURACY.
Save Time / Gain Discounts
Smarter Busy Themes: Costs & Spending, Process Improvement
Groups Affected: Finance, Procurement
A system that reduced the overall process of getting vendors paid quickly while being able to take advantage of discounts that are gained through faster payments.
Milestone Cost Tracking
Smarter Busy Themes: Costs & Spending, Process Improvement, Data Integrity, Best Practices, Innovation
Groups Affected: Finance, Site Development
A system that tracks the dollars spent every step of the way. This makes it easy to gain control of what dollars are coming in and out of a program.
Fail Fast
Smarter Busy Themes: Process Improvement, Best Practices
Groups Affected: RF Design
It's very common to have directional changes to projects. The issues occur when these changes are not communicated on time. Loads of work may need to be re-work. `While Re-work is a reality we can't get away from, implementing processes such as verification layers proactively in between can drastically reduce Re-work time loss.
Info Inundation
Smarter Busy Themes: Program Improvement, Best Practices, Data Integrity
Groups Affected: Program Management, RF Design
When dealing with many teammates and groups, it's quite common that actions become unmanageable because action owners get inundated with too much info. This leads to unread email and worse, jobs that fall through the cracks. We've applied Lean tools to consolidate the information to consolidate actions in 'digestible and clear' chunks. Along with this we've applied aging to the actions to enforce SLAs.
Fitting In - Work Culture
Smarter Busy Themes: Process Improvement, Work Culture Fit
Groups Affected: Program Management, RF Design, Site Development
Processes can be deemed as officially broken when you see a lot of finger pointing or 'throwing jobs/actions' over the fence via email while unnecessarily copying management, etc. This break in work culture is something we are great at solving by improving the Barriers of Communication and developing a "Do the Right Thing" culture. We employ the right, experienced, 'culturally-correct' members who will understand the current workflows and change the dynamics without disrupting teams workflows, or egos. We've seen rejuvenation of cooperation and collaboration which is resulting in higher productivity
Location, Location, Location
Smarter Busy Themes: Process Improvement, Innovation
Groups Affected: Program Management, RF Design, Site Development, Field Ops
What happens when you see that your competitor is beating you in an area? Do you put up a site right next to them? Not always. We don't just blindly suggest sites when the competition is present. In this example we took the time to think outside the box and find a location that allowed us to reallocate some budget and more importantly provide better coverage than what the competition is offering.
Always Sticking to Fundamentals
Smarter Busy Themes: Process Improvement
Groups Affected: Program Management, RF Design, Site Development, Field Ops
An area with high visibility puts a lot of pressure on teams to simply get the job done. But you can't see this as a numbers game. We've had many instances where these pressure occur but it's always important to have your priorities in place: How much will this cost, What does it mean in terms of performance, How many customers can be covered, etc.
Large Venue Real-Time Monitoring
Smarter Busy Themes: Big Data Analytics, Best Practices, Innovation
Groups Affected: Optimization & Performance
Big Events such as concerts, sporting events, etc. present some of the hardest RF challenges when it comes to service quality. Being able to have information at your fingertips to adjust network settings and parameters is key so subscribers can experience a seamless service.
Get to the Finish Line - New Site Acceptance
Smarter Busy Themes: Data Integrity, Best Practices, Innovation
Groups Affected: Program Management, Site Development, Optimization & Performance
The closeout package is one of the most inconsistent, non-standard procedures in Site Development. This variance in how a project is closed out can cause confusion and lead to re-work. We've added governance and innovation to make this activity smoother.
Indoor vs. Outdoor Insights
Smarter Busy Themes: Innovation, Big Data Analytics
Groups Affected: Planning, Optimization & Performance
Understanding the traffic distribution of calls that are made indoors vs. outdoors can help the team plan site deployments accordingly.
In-building Coverage Analytics
Smarter Busy Themes: Innovation, Big Data Analytics
Groups Affected: Planning, Optimization & Performance
In some cases, it's important for Markets to get an understanding of the type of coverage in-building. This gives them insight on whether corrective action is required in terms of adding new in-building solutions.
Get more! Capacity Exhaustion Analytics
Smarter Busy Themes: Innovation, Best Practices, Budget & Spending
Groups Affected: Optimization & Performance, Planning, Market Management
All too often Operators face the challenge of having to invest more into their macro sites but the problem is that their in-building solutions are not offloading the traffic that was originally planned. The other challenge is that they don't have this visibility. Until now…
Executive KPIs
Smarter Busy Themes: Best Practices, Innovation, Data Integrity, Process Improvement
Groups Affected: Market Management
Imagine living in a world where all of your data could roll up into a few KPIs and these KPIs, depending on their results could provide you with a drill-down to the Top N areas that are affecting it (root-cause) and provide you clear insights on what your next actions should be? This system exists today and is in practice with our customers.
Planning Automation
Smarter Busy Themes: Automation, Innovation
Groups Affected: Planning
Running Prediction Analysis can be a lengthy activity depending on the tools that you are using. Understanding the work at hand along with the limitations of the tools has allowed our teams to provide innovative techniques to build scripts, reduce the time to process the predictions, and react quickly to the results.
Enforcing Governance - Document Control
Smarter Busy Themes: Best Practices, Data Integrity, Process Improvement, Innovation
Groups Affected: RF Design, Site Development, Market Management
Let's face it, many of us manage our projects or have master trackers on Excel or a tool that is not centralized. And we carry out communications with emails. It can get hard to track! Document trails, history revision control are all challenges causing confusion and worse yet, inaccurate information. This is all eliminated with our new tools and systems that make the decentralized methods, centralized and seamless.
Daily / Weekly / Quarterly Reporting
Smarter Busy Themes: Best Practices, Process Improvement, Innovation
Groups Affected: Program Management, RF Design, Site Development, Market Management
This is nothing new. Or is it? Reporting is always a requirement. But it's the quality of reports, the ability to drive actions, and the ability to create accountability and motivation with the groups involved. We have demonstrated and have changed the way programs are managed by placing effective methodologies to create alignment and adoption while being able to drive actions.