BHP Research Centre

Introducing the Intelligent Cable Management System that Optimises Cabling Capacity in a Low Profile Sandwich

How's that for a clever little Australian?

BHP Research headquarters, Melbourne, Australia. A new building, designed and purpose built to meet the expanding research and communications needs of the nineties.

Given the choices available to Australia's foremost producer of steel, there were a few raised eyebrows when the Big Australian opted for a cable management solution that did not use steel pedestals or steel covers. Obviously the decision was based purely on merit. And now they say it was the best decision that they ever made!

Crosstrack. The cable management system BHP Research chose.

BHP Research (Building RB2), Wellington Road, Mulgrave, Victoria.

Description

The BHP Research Building RB2, completed in 1992, houses the considerable computing and communications resources of the research and development division of BHP. The project received an Award of Merit by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 1993.

A VAX system, IBM, Apple MacIntosh, Silicon Graphics and others are all housed and networked in this facility.

Additional to the cabling requirements of power and telecoms, the access floor houses cabling for transfer of high resolution imaging and networking via Ethernet, LocalTalk and multiple-loop systems s well as PABX multi-plex links and VPN tie-lines.

While a small amount of pedestal access floor has been installed in the host computer area the vast majority of this building is cabled via Crosstrack.

Mr Tony Schafter, Superintendent, Engineering Services, described the performance of the access floor installation after two years of regular re-cabling and constant foot traffic.

"Crosstrack is very economical, so we thought it may be limited in it's cable capacity over time. But it now has a lot of cable in there and it's nowhere near full.

Crosstrack has the added advantage of in-built segregation. It handles cabling alterations without a fuss.

Although hundreds of people walk over it every day it has never given us any problems. When you don't get any complaints around here you know it's a good system.

Crosstrack is as versatile as any deep floor system for wiring purposes. It copes with any amount of cable alterations" Tony said.