Despite what teenagers might tell you, no one person can be an expert in everything. In fact, as quickly as things change – especially when it comes to audiovisual technology – being an expert in any one thing is practically a full-time job unto itself.
Which is why E1’s engineers take a team approach on every project. But since much of that “engineering” work is done behind the scenes, we thought we would lift the curtain, so you could have a look.
Many of our engineers have five to 10 years of experience, some more than 30, giving them a broad range of technical knowledge and capabilities. With those years of experience, an engineer often develops expertise in certain aspects of their work, which is reflected in the types of industry information they read, the certifications they pursue and the professional relationships they build over the years.
At E1, this expertise is shared with companies even before they become a customer. Often, one of our engineers will be a part of initial prospect site visits. We have found there is no one better to “peel back the onion.”
It’s only natural for prospective clients to be thinking in terms of monitors and speakers. But our engineers are there to help guide the conversation – translating wants and needs into questions about functional requirements, user preferences and physical environments. They are looking for the key pieces of information that will set the foundation in helping our team design the ultimate solution.
Once back in the office, the engineer from the site visit will use the gathered information to brainstorm the project with other members of our engineering team. Each contributes their respective areas of expertise relative to technologies, techniques, capabilities and design.
With the benefit of these different perspectives, we can begin to develop a proposed solution that aligns with a prospect’s vision, goals and budget.
It’s at this point, a project engineer gets down to the nitty gritty of architecting the system. This involves taking the technical specifications of each proposed component, showing how each will connect and determining the level of work needed to implement the project.
The connectivity part of system design used to be pretty straight forward. All the AV components connected with other AV components. Pretty much a self-contained operating environment. But not anymore. Most systems today tie into a company’s IT infrastructure – making this part of the process even more critical and requiring specialized areas of expertise.
One of our CAD (computer-aided design) experts takes the technology schematics and marries them to the prospect’s room/building specifications. With these drawings in hand, everyone – especially our prospective client - knows exactly where everything goes, how it is connected and what the finished look and feel will be like.
Once we add in pricing, we are ready to provide a prospect with a proposal.
But the teamwork doesn’t end there.
The years of experience, areas of specialized expertise also extend to E1’s implementation teams. The number of team members will vary by size of project. The composition of the team may change based on the work that needs to be done at any given point in time. However, those handling the implemention have complementary skillsets, including certifications that speak to their respective areas of expertise.
The orchestration for all of this knowhow is really impressive – and probably not fully appreciated by those who think designing an AV system is nothing more than going on Amazon and buying a big screen and speakers. But then again...for those type of solutions, all they really need to do is hire a teenager. They’re an expert at everything.
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