News 2012

SIS LIVE transforms Outside Broadcast Resource Scheduling – with help from Quintiq

London, United Kingdom, February 08, 2012

SIS LIVE, Europe’s leading supplier of outside broadcast facilities and satellite uplinks, is transforming the way it plans the deployment of equipment, crews and contractors – a critical exercise with massive business implications for any OB operation.

The new system from Quintiq is now live and provides centralized planning, giving planners a complete overview of all resources, including those that may be available from other departments. It gives users real-time access to plans & schedules, complete with their own preferred look and feel.

The Quintiq system also provides event and schedule information to employees, giving them, for example, the ability to view new and updated bookings remotely – something that may later be extended to selected freelancers. Bottom line, this means significantly increased planning efficiencies, better productivity using OB resources, and greater flexibility in what is a very dynamic operating environment.

SIS LIVE transforms Outside Broadcast Resource Scheduling - with help from Quintiq

SIS LIVE operates the largest fleet of outside-broadcast and satellite-uplink trucks in Europe, so being able to manage the movement of equipment and vehicles within the same system as crew scheduling offers real benefits. Quintiq is the only company providing a single solution that combines crew scheduling and physical logistics.

Until now, like many OB operations, planners had scheduled equipment and crew using legacy systems that did not have the capacity to manage resources efficiently. Juggling the complex logistics had become a nightmare.

The new system promises to reduce the number of hires and freelancers, and cut crew changes, overnight stops, and last minute equipment changes once an event has begun.

“A single system gives us opportunities to cut driver miles and transport costs, optimize the geographic deployment of kit, and react to last minute changes, all in real time,” explains Matthew Fell, who oversaw the project within SIS LIVE. “OB is a ‘last minute’ environment, so real-time information will help to exploit ad-hoc opportunities to sell spare capacity.”

A model implementation

Another reason SIS LIVE selected Quintiq was Quintiq’s implementation methodology. It is very much a collaborative approach that begins with a two-way brainstorming analysis phase. Quintiq then comes back with a first-take solution that is fine tuned in collaboration with the client. The goal of this process is a 100%-fit final working version.

“There are real benefits to this approach,” Fell comments. “You end up not with an ivory-tower version, but with a version that has been honed to the real working environment, with planners actively involved to get a better fit. Because our planners were involved, each configuring their own look and feel, they achieved buy-in before the system was even handed over. And, of course, traditional training became unnecessary as users had acquired their skills alongside the developers.”

About SIS Live

SIS LIVE offers a complete broadcasting solution, including host broadcast and outside broadcast facilities, 3D outside broadcast, satellite uplinks and immediate satellite internet services. SIS LIVE operates the largest fleet of outside-broadcast and satellite-uplink trucks in Europe. For more information on SIS Live please visit their website at www.sislive.tv