Engineers create a “design” that meets an organization’s business requirements.
The design stage of asset lifecycle management is often overlooked. This stage typically requires the expertise of an engineer who thoroughly understands the pros and cons of various equipment options available in the market. This expertise enables engineers to create a design that meets an organization’s business requirements and specifications based on the intended use of the asset, uptime requirements, maintenance plans, installation, and operational requirements.
Here’s what an engineer might accomplish during the design stage:
- Determine design requirements
- Develop scope of work/specifications
- Research equipment options that meet specifications
- Create a preliminary design solution
- Select appropriate equipment
- Verify design
- Create installation requirements
- Finalize design and create documentation
Let’s look at the data center
Data centers are incredibly expensive to build or update. As a result, many businesses opt to design a data center that meets their current needs but may not meet future business requirements. These short-term design decisions can be costly and/or leave a company vulnerable. Engineers with expertise in data centers can evaluate the company’s existing data center facilities infrastructure and uncover inefficiencies, single points of failures, limitations, etc.
The engineer’s evaluation criteria will not only include data center space, power, and cooling infrastructure, but also encompass any needs for data backups/replication, reliable power sources, redundancy and bandwidth for data communication, security measures and environmental controls that all require monitoring and maintenance. This evaluation provides the foundation needed prior to creating the design.
A new data center allows for better data management and smoother operations. Modernizing your data center allows you to focus on future-oriented innovations instead of day-to-day operations. A company that fails to plan and design their assets’ lifecycle management could incur huge amounts of unanticipated expenses, not to mention unnecessary downtime. Determining both current and anticipated future business requirements and performing a thorough evaluation, data center engineers can provide the optimal data center design solution for a company.
Be sure to check back here soon for the next installment in our Asset Lifecycle Management series.