equans

An Asian woman working on her laptop with a cup of coffee next to her.

moving towards a fast internet connection.

Fiber to the Home is a project lead by Equans, a company which facilitates transitions for energy, industry and digital technology. This company, which used to be called Engie Solutions, tries to improve their customers’ installations and technical processes through these transitions. Equans is part of a consortium that works for Proximus. The telecom operator wants to replace its copper telephone connections as soon as possible. In September 2020, only about 5 percent of Belgian families had access to this fast internet connection, while neighbouring countries such as France and Luxembourg could provide over 70 percent of families with fast internet.

That’s why Fiberklaar, a cooperation between Proximus and EQT Infrastructure, is investing 5 billion euros to give as many people as possible access to fiber optic cables, which substantially speed up data traffic and have a positive impact on our economy. Equans is facilitating this by digging, drilling or welding in, among others, Brussels and Antwerp, and bringing fiber optic cables into people’s homes.

from concept to detailed design.

To realize this process, Equans needs detailed plans, on which the installers can see very clearly which type of connection has to be placed where. Starting from September 2020, Equans has entrusted us with this task. “We first started with a training trajectory”, Frederik Verstraete, business director project services at Randstad Digital tells us. “After the training, we designed a pilot. Once this was approved, we started working on the detailed design full time. When everything was up to Equans’ standards, we were able to roll out the pilot activity in the detailed design.”

Equans put their full trust in our plans to expand the fiber optic network. Depending on demand, we can quickly and in a flexible way adjust our offer. Thanks to the fixed price per connection, Equans is able to optimize its costs. “Meanwhile, in 2021 we planned about 30,000 fiber optic connections”, says Frederik. “During peak moments, we are able to process up to 9,000 connections per month. We are now gradually increasing this number. In the coming months, we will add 35,000 connections to the existing Go4Fiber project that we are working on next to Fiberklaar/Unifiber. We can quickly and correctly respond to Equans’ demand: if they wish to do so, we can multiply these numbers in the short term, but if they are temporarily planning fewer connections, the costs will also go down.”

unburden equans completely.

Next to flexibility, we also guarantee quality and punctuality. “We make sure all knowledge is safeguarded, and since the entire process continues with us, we keep the quality steady at a high level. What’s more, we ensure that all plans are put to paper on time, so there will be no conflicts in the execution. This way, Equans can be sure the entire process runs smoothly. That’s how we unburden them completely of this crucial step in installing fiber optic cable”, concludes Frederik.

qualitative follow-up: first time right above 95%

A well-educated team of 23 full-time employees works on the entire lifecycle of this project. We have put in place a goal-oriented and efficient plan for quality control, which is applied to each stage of the project.
Once a stage is completed, we use the ‘four eyes principle’: self-control + peer-control, including internally created checklists. If a mistake is found, a revision is required including a new control stage on this revision, with a completion for the next stage or delivery.
Any updates and errors that the client finds, lead to adaptations of the guidelines and the root cause analysis (5 why analysis). There is also a weekly meeting in place to discuss every area of the project - for example: technical updates, KPIs, planning, capacity and so on.

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