RMS provides invaluable alarms, but the majority of the performance data generated by RMS is seldom used. Inala Infrastructure Intelligence saw an opportunity to harvest and analyse operational, environmental, performance and utilisation data from any RMS (not only Inala RMS), marry it with the actual asset data, and use the resulting intelligence to power predictive maintenance, allow for site and/or asset comparisons, assist with capex estimation and provide intelligent reporting and dashboards to assist in decision making, thus deploying opex and capex more effectively.
TowerXchange: What is the Infrastructure Intelligence proposition?
Jannie van Rhyn, GM Infrastructure Intelligence, Inala:
Inala Infrastructure Intelligence is a service designed to effectively and efficiently optimise, maintain and manage passive assets. The service correlates the technical and financial data of passive assets with their performance and operational data through the collaboration of systems, processes and people. The resulting reports, dash boards and recommendations allow for the efficient management of the infrastructure through systems like job cards, contractor management, maintenance management and SLA management. This helps to improve asset availability and utilisation while providing more effective decision making support.
Although most of the RMSs do an excellent job of real time monitoring, controlling and alarming of the of sites and its assets, they are not optimised for historical data analysis, failure prediction and trend analysis. RMS are also usually not integrated with ticketing and job cards systems, and not integrated with asset registers to allow for more efficient asset utilisation and decision making. By implementing our Infrastructure Intelligence service alongside the client’s preferred RMS, the tower operator will have a much enhanced and complete asset management solution. This allows for improved life expectancy and ROI in passive infrastructure, as well as better financial and resource planning for maintenance and capital expenditure.
TowerXchange: Who should be using Infrastructure Intelligence?
Jannie van Rhyn, GM Infrastructure Intelligence, Inala:
Our ideal client is either responsible for or will benefit from more efficient management of the passive assets on mobile telecommunication sites. It could be a Mobile Network Operator, it could be an independent towerco, or could be a managed service provider managing the network, including the passive assets, such as NSN or Ericsson. Even if a network is too small to make the implementation of the service viable on its own, one can easily implement the service cost effectively over more than one network to the benefit of all network owners involved.
Elements of Inala Infrastructure Intelligence
TowerXchange: With which RMS’s can the Infrastructure Intelligence service be used?
Jannie van Rhyn, GM Infrastructure Intelligence, Inala:
Our service and its implementation is independent of the RMS system and its hardware. All we need is access to and an understanding of the data or the data strings from the client’s RMS. This allows for the service to be implemented over more than one RMS within the same network. In such a case the user will have a combined single view of the network even though it has more than one RMS deployed.
We can also interface with existing ticketing systems, job cards systems, and ERP systems if the client already has these systems implemented.
TowerXchange: How does Infrastructure Intelligence present insights?
Jannie van Rhyn, GM Infrastructure Intelligence, Inala:
The service presents insights through dash boards, regular and ad hoc reports. These dash boards are not only hierarchically differentiated but also department specific, and can be tailored to needs of the specific post or department.
For example, the Group CFO’s dash board and reports will look totally different from that of the Group CTO’s, as the one will see current value of assets, depreciation, End of Useful life et cetera, the other will see the high level status of sites, total fuel on hand, cost of sub-contractors et cetera. Similarly will there be a difference between the dash boards and reports of the Group CTO and the field engineer responsible for a specific number of sites.
TowerXchange: What kind of asset data does the service need?
Jannie van Rhyn, GM Infrastructure Intelligence, Inala:
To improve the RMS data analysis and to make a meaningful recommendation on the management of the assets, it is important to have as much information about the physical asset as possible. Typical information needed about the passive assets on telecommunication sites are the make, model and the capacity of the asset, when it was procured, the price at procurement, the maintenance schedules et cetera. This asset data can be generated within our system through tools and processes or can be obtained from existing asset registers, financial systems and ERP systems through relatively simple interfaces.
TowerXchange: Why is it important to have the RMS data AND the asset data?
Jannie van Rhyn, GM Infrastructure Intelligence, Inala:
By combining the data of the asset with its performance data, the value of the actionable intelligence for decision making is just so much more than without one of the data sets. It is typically the principle of one plus one equals three and not two.
For example, from the discharge cycle data of a battery, from the RMS, the service will indicate if the battery autonomy is below a certain threshold but the best corrective action to be taken is not so obviously apparent. But with the information on the age of the battery, the capacity of the battery and the average energy consumption of the site a much better corrective action recommendation can be made. If you now superimpose the battery performance (or lack of it) onto the average battery temperature of the specific site, you can prevent future battery degradation.
Similarly estimation of End of Useful Life, replacement timing and the depreciation of an asset can be so much more accurate if based on actual usage, environmental conditions and performance rather than based on accounting principles over the complete asset class or based on the subjective opinion of a field engineer. That is the reason why it is important for us to have the performance data and the asset data combined as the level of insight is so much more enhanced.
TowerXchange: How do you deliver this actionable intelligence to the client?
Jannie van Rhyn, GM Infrastructure Intelligence, Inala:
This is done through a combination of systems and tools, people and processes. Although part of the system is software based, much of the analysis and execution needs interpretation and supervision. For that reason, Infrastructure Intelligence is offered as a value-adding service rather than a self-supporting product or system.
The service can be implemented on two levels. Level 1 displays information in various dashboards and reports, identifies preventative maintenance tasks and makes recommendations, but does not take responsibility for the implementation and execution of the tasks and recommendations. This Level includes an Asset Management Centre (AMC) with one system operator located within the client’s environment who will operate the system ensure that the dash boards and reports are delivered, and who will handle all client queries and new requirements. It also includes analysts at Inala that continuously analyse that data, look for trends and exceptions, create ad hoc reports.
RMS should focus on three critical aspects; intelligent rectifiers, batteries and generators, categorised as an Integrated Power Management Solution (IPMS).... Everything else is noise
Ideally we want to take on the complete management of the passive infrastructure, while providing the tower owner with sufficient information to make the correct investment decisions based on their goals and objectives
Under Level 2 the AMC is expanded with more people (depending on the size of the network) as they will now take responsibility for the execution of the tasks and recommendations by ensuring the necessary job cards are issued to the correct contractors and ensuring that the contractors are effectively managed. This Level can include the takeover of the client’s current field engineers and associated resources. Level 2 service is recommended as it ensures that the management of the site maintenance is done by dedicated and trained asset management staff, that will ensure that the completed job card information is fed back into the system to ensure the data in the system is complete and up to date.
Ideally we want to take on the complete management of the passive infrastructure, while providing the tower owner with sufficient information to make the correct investment decisions based on their goals and objectives.
TowerXchange: What are the benefits of using the Infrastructure Intelligence service?
Jannie van Rhyn, GM Infrastructure Intelligence, Inala:
In the short term we will lower the cost of managing the assets and increase the availability of the assets. This is ensured through intelligent and focused reports and dash boards, more efficient maintenance management, more efficient contractor management, improved NOC operations, comparisons of costs and performance between regions, sites or assets and the identification of over designed or underperforming assets.
Further benefits include recommendations based on continuous analysis and trend analysis, predictive maintenance, valuation of assets based on actual usage, capex projections and benchmarking of costs, performance and manufacturers.
There are no extra costs for general system upgrades and improvements.
Infrastructure Intelligence can be particularly useful for towercos integrating and upgrading legacy acquired towers that might have a range of different RMS solutions installed.
Infrastructure Intelligence also provides independent third party verification on sites with more than one operator or where the operator is only a tenant. This improves transparency when it comes to SLAs and penalties.
TowerXchange: What does Infrastructure Intelligence cost?
Jannie van Rhyn, GM Infrastructure Intelligence, Inala:
The business model for the Infrastructure Intelligence service is based on a per site per month basis and the cost should be covered over time by the lower maintenance costs and higher availability. There is an implementation fee that is very much dependent on the client, the maturity of its asset management environment including systems, people and processes. The more mature it is, the easier it is to implement our service. If very few processes exists, then we need to define and implement that with the client which increases the implementation fees.
The cost of the service depends on the number of sites, the location of the sites/network, the data available from the client and the requirements of the client. For a typical network in say East Africa of 750 sites the implementation fee will be from US$50,000 to US$100,000.
The monthly fee for such a network and the Level 1 service will be from as little as US$30 per site per month the Level 2 service from as little as US$100. For Level 2 service, where we take over the most of the maintenance management staff, the client will save those costs immediately.
TowerXchange: What are the practicalities around implementing Intelligent Infrastructure?
Jannie van Rhyn, GM Infrastructure Intelligence, Inala:
The implementation of the service have very little impact on the clients current environment.
Inala will, with the client, review the client’s current relevant systems and processes in order to define the scope of the service. Together with the client the configurable parameters, rules, dashboards and report layouts, access control, frequency of report delivery and the distribution lists are finalised and documented.
The recommended location for the hosting of the Asset Information Management System (AIMS) is in the cloud to ensure quick and effective access for stakeholders, but it can also be hosted in any environment specified by the client, if required.
RMS should focus on three critical aspects; intelligent rectifiers, batteries and generators, categorised as an Integrated Power Management Solution (IPMS).... Everything else is noise
passive asset information and knowledge of the assets will be so much better and independent, giving you more confidence in the data presented to prospective buyers, leading to an improved valuation
TowerXchange: Can Infrastructure Intelligence deliver insights fast enough to be used as a tool supporting the sale of tower assets, as I’d imagine the level of visibility and control over passive assets could have a multiplying effect on the valuation of tower portfolios?
Jannie van Rhyn, GM Infrastructure Intelligence, Inala:
If it is a new client, the speed at which we can deliver insights to be used in due diligence for a tower transaction depends what data the MNO has. Specifically, do they have an up to date and complete asset register? If they don’t have a complete asset register, Infrastructure Intelligence can pull in data from RMS and from those various orphaned databases that field engineers have on their laptops, and we can pull all of that into one database. We can also physically survey sites using mobile applications with barcode scanners and digital check lists that can send the information back to our central database, but of course that takes more time.
If the MNO is an existing Inala Infrastructure Intelligence client then the passive asset information and knowledge of the assets will be so much better and independent, giving you more confidence in the data presented to prospective buyers, leading to an improved valuation.
