Page 24 - Rosendin_Q2_2019_Newsletter

reviously, a linear process involved FROM VALUE CHAIN TO SUPPLY CHAIN Admins on a job site, for instance,
Pwho called out the needs of the
HYPERSCALE'S IMPACT
ON DATA CENTER BUILD AND DESIGN:
CALLING ALL PLAYERS TO THE TABLE
By Bill Mazzetti and Frank Nash | Reprinted from 7x24 Exchange International
The demand for
megawatt tonnage
from the big five' cloud
providers, coupled with service
providers pursuing market share, is
unprecedented. The five majors are driving
extraordinary scale at record speed, not only
constructing their own data centers, but also leasing
out huge chunks of infrastructure and space. Traditional
data center construction methods are being upended. In this
new data center design and build paradigm, all the players must
come to the table to collaborate for success.
24 The Feeder | Issue 2, 2019
a consultant working with a client Hyperscale providers have moved shouldn’t have to fill out forms. That’s
the design and build process from not efficient, rewarding or impactful.
business. The consultant would put transactional to strategic because
together a rough design, typically the operations therein are core to Some manufacturers and contractors
around the worst-case scenario and the business and critical to meeting are integrating an “Uber approach”
largest hardware footprint. The design the ever-increasing expectations as another means of addressing
would be put out to RFP and, generally of the digital world. As the market capacity constraints, a tighter labor
speaking, the lowest bidder won. has outpaced vendors’ capacity to pool and their inability to bring
manufacture and construct against it, new manufacturing facilities on-line
Now, it’s table stakes for manufacturers the industry is playing catchup. expediently. This method leverages
to participate in that process and Still, as demand continues to increase other third-party partners to
ever more important for the entire
supplement their own capacity; for
“value chain” — vendors, consultants, and the labor scarcity grows, the example, employing smaller builders
that can more easily meet spot spikes.
builders, contractors, integrators, etc.
product stream remains constricted.
To address this obstacle, some
Third-party integrators fall into this
— to work together up front, in a more
manufacturers are establishing
open way. A lack of coordination leads
category as well.
to inefficiency, an obvious deterrent to dedicated capacity for the hyperscale Streamlining the supply chain process
segment so as not to interrupt the
speed. Minimizing inefficiency requires
a more collaborative approach. The
with prefabricated solutions and
flow of their core businesses. After
auxiliary providers will hasten delivery
higher the demand, the faster the
all, construction in other key building
need to deploy, and the more sectors is still growing — albeit at less and get hyperscale data centers up and
running in the field faster. Reinventing
connected stakeholders need to
of a steep curve.
such practices also depends on higher
be. In the end, it’s shuffling
the sequence and then But this approach alone won’t be collaboration. Together, the value
overlapping several activities enough. The hyperscale paradigm chain stakeholders must determine
that had been traditionally combined with resource constraints is what can and should be done in which
serially sequenced. dictating a new approach to the entire environment and how; at the fastest
supply chain. For one, standardization possible pace at the most reasonable
Such huge demand for speed and in the form of prefabricated solutions price.
scale also means that cost may not be can help eliminate the need for custom
the top consideration in deployments engineering and reduce on-site man- THE PAST IS NOT SUSTAINABLE
any longer. Traditional procurement hour requirements, as well as baseline The way it was ‘always done’ will not
methods, where purchasers make schedule and project assumptions lead to successful design and build of
decisions primarily based on price but by all on-site participants. This is the hyperscale data centers. To compete,
are mostly removed from the reality paradigm shift from the top-down it’s time to break habits in place since
of the business case, is becoming approach that has been tradition for the 1970s. Purchase, bid, evaluate
obsolete. Considering the time frame decades. and contract is a thing of the past and
principals in this industry have been a linear, engineering approach will
operating, hardware and construction Pre-integration and testing in a cost more and take longer to deploy
controlled manufacturing environment
costs are well-known. This knowledge
in this exploding market sector. This is
should allow organizations to baseline enables not just speed to market but no different than the past two major
deployment and purchasing decisions
paradigm shifts in the data center
also higher reliability. Data Center
as opposed to resorting to a pure RFP- facilities are subjected to rigorous industry – the Tier/Class grading
based purchasing exercise.
commissioning exercises. Assembling
system where none previously existed,
Rather, resources and scheduling and testing components and hardware rendering measurable standards for
data center facilities; and the data
sub-assemblies as well as integrating
are the new priorities as a skilled monitoring systems, can be done center real estate solutions that
productized those assumptions, while
partially or fully in a factory, avoiding
labor shortage is jeopardizing the
ability to meet project schedules. In the need for valuable labor on site. transferring financial and operational
the electrical contractor field alone, Ideally, and especially during times responsibilities to service providers.
the National Electrical Contractor’s
This dynamic is no different. It’s merely
Association (NECA) research predicts of constrained capacity, workers can the next frontier in the chase for
perform to the highest level of their
the need for 300,000 more electricians
efficiency. Integrated project delivery is
between now and 2025 — a far skillsets for the longest time every day. that new model. It brings all players to
greater number than currently on that
That is, in part, what prefabricated
the table with a standardized process
intended career path. solutions enable. What can be for optimized results.
automated should be automated.
Issue 2, 2019 | The Feeder 25