CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

28 October 2009

Implementation Investments

Bentley’s Communications Software Drives New Network Design, Construction, and Operations Efficiencies at Kabel Noord

Bentley Systems, Incorporated announced that Kabel Noord, a growing communications service provider in the Netherlands, has built out its network infrastructure using Bentley’s GIS and communications infrastructure engineering platform. The software, which includes MicroStation, Bentley Fiber, Bentley Geo Web Publisher, and Bentley PowerMap Field, replaced an outsourced system that was slow, didn’t provide the right data, and lacked the functionality needed by Kabel Noord for cost-effective network engineering. The new platform from Bentley is helping Kabel Noord increase productivity, enhance data quality, and extend web-based access to engineering data throughout the organization.

The new system has been readily adopted by the Kabel Noord staff and the contractors to whom it outsources all of its network builds. The innovative and flexible system is enabling these project teams to engineer in both coax and fiber using a single interface and to store the data in an Oracle database.

Commenting on his company’s decision to choose the broad set of engineering capabilities provided by the Bentley communications solution, Anton van der Hoek, head of technical services at Kabel Noord, said, “In the Netherlands, recommendations go a long way. When we started asking questions about tools available to meet our demanding requirements, Bentley Systems came up time and again as the leading source.

“The system we previously deployed didn’t provide the proper graphics and made it difficult, if not impossible, for us to store the right attributes for our network infrastructure. That’s why we decided to research other systems. Our evaluation of Bentley products made it clear that their many capabilities and benefits are the best fit for our demanding needs. Now that we are putting our new Bentley products to work for us, we have more accurate data, can design faster, can publish our GIS data to nontechnical users, and are able to integrate successfully with other enterprise systems.”

A key advantage of Bentley’s GIS platform is that once the data is created, it can be used across multiple disciplines and shared with all departments within the organization. The products typically are employed by design engineers, construction crews in the field, and engineers supporting fault recovery. Increasingly, the data is being used to drive capacity planning operations.

Through its deployment of Bentley Geo Web Publisher, which can publish spatial data over the web and support all types of queries through a simple, intuitive interface, the Kabel Noord project teams can readily access infrastructure data through a standard web browser. This extended access to the intelligent network model empowers additional members of the Kabel Noord team, including customer service representatives – who can use this information to respond more quickly to queries from customers.

The value of the data is further enhanced by its integration with CRM and ERP systems, which Kabel Noord has already successfully implemented. Bentley software’s full support of this integration was yet another reason for its selection.

The Bentley software is providing the Kabel Noord project teams with increased productivity and consequent cost savings. The data created using Bentley Fiber can readily be taken into the field using Bentley PowerMap Field for Communications, and the system’s powerful and intuitive graphics are enhancing and facilitating all design work. At the same time, the quality of the data has improved.

As Mr. van der Hoek explained, “Our designers and construction engineers are staying within the workflows and committing all changes to the as-built because they like working in the Bentley environment. The Bentley products are powerful, yet intuitive to use, and they make engineering design easier.”

For additional information about Bentley Geo Web Publisher, visit http://www.bentley.com/GeoWebPublisher. For additional information about Bentley PowerMap Field, visit http://www.bentley.com/PowerMapField. For additional information about Bentley Fiber, visit http://www.bentley.com/Fiber.

About Kabel Noord

Kabel Noord is a fast-growing communications service provider delivering multiple services over coax and fiber infrastructure to homes and businesses in the North of The Netherlands.

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