- The University of Warwick is a leading centre for learning in the United Kingdom (UK), where it consistently ranks as one of the country's Top 10 universities. Looking beyond this achievement, Warwick's stated goal is to be ranked among the Top 50 universities in the world by 2015 – the school's 50th Anniversary.
"The AMX products have performed reliably, successfully and repeatedly for four years. In fact, in our 40 plus installations, we've only had one ControlPad go down, and that was only because of the power supply."
- The University is justifiably proud of its lecturing facilities, so when Daniel Bell, Team Leader for Audio Visual Services, decided to look at control systems for the university's many lecture rooms, he considered a number of factors to be important.
- "When I joined Warwick, the University's large lecture theatres were driven by traditional AMX® Control Systems – but the many smaller rooms mostly lacked any type of control system. The amount of equipment in each room – and associated remote controls – was growing, and I could see that we were putting our lecturers in a position where there was high potential for mistakes to be made," explained Bell.
"This gives us great flexibility – if we change the projector in a particular room, we simply change the settings on the ControlPad accordingly – it's all within our own control. It keeps costs down and means we can make changes in a timely manner," said Bell.
- "The benefits of room control systems could be seen in our large lecture halls, but I wanted a simpler solution for the smaller rooms – one that the users could have real confidence in using, and one that we could ultimately support ourselves. Plus, it was important for me to deal with a company in whom I had confidence – and one that would listen to ideas and feedback," he added.
- Bell's chosen route included AMX Novara™ ControlPads and Solecis™ Presentation Switchers. His confidence in the products is such that he now specifies them as a standard solution for all lecture rooms seating up to 100 people.
- And Bell now has a member of his team who is able to make basic changes to the ControlPads themselves.
"We have become increasingly familiar with the ControlPads over the years, and having the ability to make simple changes is a huge benefit to us.
- So why is his confidence in AMX and its products so high? "The AMX products have performed reliably, successfully and repeatedly for four years. In fact, in our 40 plus installations, we've only had one ControlPad go down, and that was only because of the power supply."
- The University now has more than 40 fully-equipped lecture rooms, with the remaining rooms scheduled into a roll out programme over the coming months. There is also an upgrade programme in place for the first rooms in which Novara ControlPads were installed.
- Bell summarised, "Quite simply, AMX has listened to my objectives and made them eminently achievable. You can't ask for much more than that from a business partner."
