It's hard to write a blog post on quality for DAS business, because quality is essential for all aspects of DAS business, starting from the way we deal with client, expectation management, site survey, design, installation, project management, commissioning, close-out package and even troubleshooting. This post just focuses on DAS engineering package we submit to our clients.
DAS engineering has to be functional, practical and sensible - and these features are the bedrock of quality engineering package. However, 'quality' goes beyond these - and this is where we incorporate and employ design principles and creativity. Deliverable from Design group should focus on clarity and simplicity, should exude care - not sloppiness.
So, essentially there are 3 areas to focus:
1. Engineering
2. Content
3. Format
Engineering:
Optimum design. Maximize coverage and capacity with fewest RF elements. Design that we can defend and champion.
Quality engineering starts with quality site survey. Determine the proper coverage objectives, and if there is any future expansion plan. This can be tricky given the fact that client wants keep the budget to a minimum most of the time, and does not want to think about the future expansion. Just do the best you can.
Collect pertinent and value-added data during site survey. It's pretty common for vendors to do a half-baked survey, design the DAS with a lot of assumptions which need to be field verified during construction. This opens up door for change order which can be quite vexing for the client. We try to do a thorough survey to minimize or eliminate surprises - this allows our installers to go prepared. We have site-survey checklist that our engineers use to make sure they have covered all bases.
Verbiage:
This is a dialog between your client and you at your absence. Our words are representing us.
Proposal content has to be clear and easy to understand. One of the aspects of DAS proposal is people from different background read it - engineering, project management, sales, and sometimes the end-customer. So content (i.e., text) has to be crafted in a way so that it is clear and add value to people from various disciplines.
Format:
Format has to promote clarity of design. It has to be clear and easy to understand.
Apply contextual help for clarity and understanding. This means insert comments in the design so that a reviewer is not going back and forth to understand any part of the design.
Apply different shades and colors of font. If you are using a lot of comments, then keep the main comments little darker than the details - so that readers can differentiate and also document does not appear to be full of clutter.
Proper usage of font size, type, and line spacing can contribute towards a crisp format. We even read on the latest trend on typography and find out what kind of font type, size, color and line-spacing deemed most conducive to comprehension of a topic (see this interesting article).
Use easy-to-understand block diagrams that can clarify a complex design.
Format should also be easy for installers and integrator to understand. Even helpful during troubleshooting.
