IT Infrastructure In The Company – This Is How Efficient Cable Management Works

Companies and network operators need a central instance to keep an eye on the backbone for IoT and Industry 4.0.

Cables are the lifelines of every IT infrastructure in a company. Through them, unimaginable amounts of data flow back and forth between companies, departments, customers, machines, or different clouds every day. The whole of digitization and the Internet would be unthinkable without cables.

Cables are system-relevant but are usually not even mentioned in the discussion about digitalization trends such as automation. Their planning and management are essential so that all buildings, workplaces, applications, people, and machines can be supplied with data with sufficient speed and quantity. Solutions for cable management are used for this.

IT Infrastructure In The Company: Cable Management On The Premises And In Buildings

With a cable management solution, companies can document and track the entire cable route on their premises and buildings. This gives you an overview of the existing infrastructure, allows you to operate it safely, and at the same time plan the expansion in a better, more targeted, and efficient manner.

Prevent The Causes Of Malfunctions For Optimal Operation

Once companies have documented their cabling and enriched their documentation with geo-referential information, they can operate preventive fault management very efficiently: for example, preventing necessary cables from being accidentally damaged during construction work. Geographic information or geographic information systems are therefore mainly used in the outdoor area of ​​the campus, where they are used for the exact localization of components such as cable routes.

The ability to precisely localize a fault is particularly crucial on large sites such as production sites or airports to keep downtimes and costs as low as possible. Hundreds of thousands of kilometers of cables can be laid at a single airport. Thanks to the improved overview and increased efficiency, operating costs and expenses for incident processes can be significantly reduced. Savings of up to 50 percent are possible through modern cable management.

Planning And Visualization

Cable management plays an important role not only in operation but also in the expansion of cable networks. When new buildings are built on the factory premises, professional cable management solutions provide precise and clear information and graphic overviews for planning. The optimal, most efficient routing for cables is determined, for example, by an integrated auto-routing functionality.

With geo-referenced information, planners and building contractors receive a digital map on which all lines, functions, and connection points are entered instead of confusing tables. All this information helps to efficiently control external service providers such as construction companies or external service personnel and instruct them quickly and easily.

IT Infrastructure In The Company: Safeguarding Critical Systems

Cable management is not just a solution for large corporations with data centers and sprawling factory premises. But what should be documented urgently? As a rule of thumb, the more critical and complex infrastructures and their underlying components or services are, the more necessary it is to record them in professional and detailed documentation. The documentation then offers the entire overview from the cables to the services based on them. This is how the company can ensure its added value. This applies to companies of all sizes and in all sectors.

Cable Management In Practice: 100 Percent Data Quality At Automobile Manufacturers

A quick overview of the existing infrastructure is essential: According to this motto, a well-known car company manages all of its cabling in the plant and office buildings with a cable management solution from FNT. This creates transparency so that you can act quickly in a fault and efficiently plan network expansion.

The system already validates the technical feasibility while planning the expansion of the cable network on the site. For example, it checks whether the cable and connector types match. At the same time, the course of routes and the location of control cabinets with patch fields and ports are documented. Manufacturer and device data, their occupancy, and the utilization of the ports and the connected devices are fully recorded.

This information is essential for the intelligent incident and change management, as the troubleshooting teams on the extensive factory premises can be sent directly to the point of failure. In addition to the routing of cables on the premises, the building cabling, for example, for the individual workstations, is also covered in the solution. “By using the cable management solution, we have 100% data quality,” wrote the project managers in their final report. As a next step, the car manufacturers are planning to expand parts of the solution with cloud-based components to optimize process support for the user further.

Benefits That Companies Can Get By Adopting A Cable Management Solution

• Complete transparency of all physical cabling and its functions
• Greater efficiency and quality for planning new expansion stages
• Simplified control of external service providers and trades for expansion and renovation measures
• Cost reduction in the area of ​​incident management through faster error detection, localization, and targeted repair measures
• Audit-proof fulfillment of regulatory requirements for documentation (e.g., corporate governance) of critical infrastructure without additional effort