Crestron Case study – Education: Singapore Institute of Management

Challenge

The Singapore Institute of Management (SIM), a leading provider of a diverse range of education pathways and professional training, is home to about 20,000 students. With the sheer volume of classes conducted, SIM required an automation solution to simplify their AV, lighting and room booking systems as the institution wanted to streamline their operations team and increase productivity levels. As with any enterprise technology application, scalability was of paramount importance. The proposed solution needed to be able to accommodate increased user requirements in the future.

Solution

Crestron was tasked with answering the institute’s need for classroom automation that saves time and provides better management of manpower resources. The objective is to help SIM become more sustainable and efficient over time in a centralised environment with real-time overview of operations.

Singapore Institute of Management

SIM currently offers a wide and diverse choice of programmes that range from secondary school to diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes as well as executive development courses.

A leading private education institution

A leading private education institution (PEI), SIM also has the most comprehensive campus of any PEI in Singapore located in Clementi Road and Namly Avenue. Covering a total gross floor area of approximately 119,900 square metres, students enjoy well-equipped campus facilities purposebuilt to enhance their learning, recreational and networking needs.

Previously, to ensure that lessons and meetings ran smoothly and on schedule, the Facilities Division under the Group Corporate Services, worked with various stakeholders to manage, consolidate, and confirm classroom bookings. This included printing weekly booking schedules for resource planning to help the team in their preparations for the day-today operations.

In addition, the team manually carried out the locking and unlocking of doors, checking of the AV systems, providing markers and mineral water, checking and changing batteries for clip-on microphones, and physically managing the light switches for each class, multiple times throughout the day. The demanding requirements meant that the day-to-day running of the facilities was extremely manpower intensive and heavily dependent on the operations team. As such, the team needed a system that would allow them to manage classroom operations in a more effective manner. Beyond that, SIM also wanted a solution that was more energy-efficient in the long run.

The operations team also considered the scalability of the solution. They wanted to future-proof their systems and required a solution that was flexible for expansion in order to cater to the institute’s future needs. Crestron emerged as a clear winner for its dependable, streamlined and innovative solutions that render its technologies easy to use by lecturers and students alike. The working relationship started off with the installation of small classroom solutions. It gradually expanded to a large-scale integration project. Deliver quality lessons at the drop of a hat Crestron delivers DigitalMedia, the only fully engineered, field-proven, end-to-end solution for managing and distributing digital AV and control signals to SIM. The classroom environment also integrates other Crestron technologies, including Crestron Fusion, DM switchers, button panels and touch panels, to enable a fluid integration of its AV, lighting and door contact into one managed solution.

The functionality of Crestron Fusion in particular stood out to the team. Deployed on premise, it added an additional layer of automation for facilities management staff to manage systems remotely, while facilitating monitoring and integration. Enabling SIM to be a high-performing education institution With Crestron Fusion, lecturers and students are now able to have lessons conducted with confidence that the technology will run like clockwork – ease, convenience and speed that comes with automation. Classes too are able to start and end more punctually. The operations team is able to maximise uptime in a proactive manner with real-time alerts, enabling them to resolve issues remotely with minimal disruptions to lessons in fully functional classrooms. Through Crestron, SIM was able to make the best use of its manpower resources with the ability to manage classrooms scheduling and reporting faulty equipment through a user friendly and intuitive interface.