Dynacord Stereo System manual Assemble the Equipment List, Expect The Unexpected

Step 4 – Assemble the Equipment List

At this point an equipment list needs to be assembled and the hardware portion of the job can be estimated. Also labor estimates can be done as well after a site inspection has been conducted and physical layouts to scale have been constructed.

Upon completion of a thorough site survey, the system may be specified and quoted. The sales engineer may also generate the design and quote, often at the same time as the site survey. Success at this stage depends upon experience and product knowledge.

To avoid ambiguity and confusion at the installation stage, the specifications need to be as explicit as possible. Of course, it should enumerate all of the equipment proposed to do the job, and should include both a block diagram and an accurate floor plan with annotations regarding construction. In addition, it should provide details such as local volume control locations and height, the desired location for amp racks, and even names of the employees who are expected to use the system. To forestall disputes and clarify responsibility if changes are required during or after installation, the customer should be asked to sign a written agreement governing the specification.

Many contracting companies simply communicate the sales engineer’s design directly to their installation department, who are charged with putting the system in and making it work. There are potential problems with this approach. For example, the salesman’s natural tendency is to over- design and oversell when he can; if the client is amenable, the result can be an excessively complicated (and problematic) system. Moreover, it is easy to make mistakes in the flush of a sale, and these may be compounded when the system goes in.

To address such pitfalls, it makes good sense to have each proposal reviewed by a second engineering employee whose approval should be required before the specification goes to installation. At this stage, design details can be fine-tuned and potential problems can be addressed to assure that the design is feasible, efficient and free of unnecessary redundancy.

Expect The Unexpected

The distributed sound system market is highly competitive and margins are small. It makes good sense to do everything you can to avoid problems at the installation stage and to be ready to handle callbacks or last minute changes smoothly. One way to do this is to anticipate problems before they occur and build contingency plans into your operation.

For example you should always have some inexpensive “fixes” at the ready. Say that the customer decides to change his floor plan at the last minute, requiring you to add another zone to the system. You can offer an additional MA series shelf-mount mixer/amplifier that enables you to offer a painless quote for the requested change, and come out a hero. You can even avoid the additional cost of installing a volume control in the new zone by putting the amplifier on a shelf in the zone.

Similarly, it may make sense to pull a couple of extra cable pairs (both speaker lines and mike lines) when making your home runs. That way, if there’s a base that wasn’t covered in the specification, you can make it up onsite. The practice also facilitates expanding the system at a later date.

Be sure that the floor plans you use are up-to-date, and keep communications open with the client. Particularly if you are limited to using existing wiring, you need to know if the client’s plans for space usage will remain the same. Otherwise, you may end up with a real headache — like having the emergency room announcements directed to the pediatric ward

Finally, it is vitally important to be sure that you know who in the client’s company is authorized to make decisions when questions arise on the job site. If the building manager tells your installers to put the amp racks in the basement you don’t want the owners calling you and insisting that they should have been in the second floor office

ElectroVoice/Dynacord BGM Guide Page 16