Maintenance costs can represent half of power opex, which in itself is usually the single largest network operating cost.
Remote Monitoring Systems (RMS) communicate an array of key performance indicators back to the NOC about the generation and consumption of energy. RMS can be integrated with job ticketing and asset lifecycle platforms to enable preventative maintenance, reducing truck rolls, extending the lifecycle of equipment, and making pilferage auditable.
It’s an attractive prospect to only pay for fuel that’s delivered and consumed. Indeed, one of many applications of RMS by towercos is remote meter reading, which reduces site visits while enabling each tenant to be billed for energy on a consumption basis.
Change management implications
“A layer of subcontractors exists serving the towercos and OEMs who win passive and active infrastructure sharing contracts,” says TowerXchange inner circle member Fazal Hussain, veteran of Helios Towers Nigeria and Eltek. “This layer of subcontractors often includes ‘mom and pop’ businesses providing passive infrastructure services – small companies unable to make substantial investments, facing skills shortages, and struggling to deliver the reliability necessary for the prime contractor to achieve demanding SLAs.”
Dick Hayter of Kentrox has a challenging perspective on the change management implications of installing Intelligent Site Management systems, including the need to reorganise subcontractors to combat engineering skills shortages by adjusting lines of reporting and directing field engineers to where the potential problems can be found. Read the interview with Dick here.
Having a few sensors at a cell site is not the same thing as holistic, intelligent site management
Experts in RMS are fairly universal in their opposition to cheap point solutions “built in a garage”, the mediocre results from which can tarnish tower operators’ view of the insights that remote monitoring can yield.
On the other hand, sensors built in to generators are considered complementary not competitive to RMS. However experts caution that such sensors aren’t enough on their own. Your RMS partner should be able to integrate generator sensors into holistic systems, saving capital investment in pricey sensor hardware. Speaking of capex, this special feature puts the leading RMS and ISM manufacturers, Inala and Kentrox, on the spot to explain what their solutions cost on a per site basis.
Translating data into intelligence
Laurentius Human, CEO of Inala and one of the godfathers of RMS, gives his perspective on the integration of RMS with maintenance scheduling systems in his interview here. According to Human, “if you can translate RMS data into actionable intelligence, you can build models for asset management and asset optimisation.”
Do you have experiences with RMS to share?...
…or would you recommend an O&M subcontractor, RMS or Asset Lifecycle Platform supplier we should cover in a future edition?
If so, please contact TowerXchange at kosmotherly@towerxchange.com
