A day in the life of Cocon key user Wilco Beijer at BAM Telecom

BAM Telecom is ranked among the top in the market when it comes to constructing telecommunications networks. We are talking to Wilco Beijer, Senior Work Planner at the Business Unit Services, which includes management and maintenance of network infrastructures.

Who is Wilco?

“I am Senior Work Planner and responsible for the management of the networks in which Cocon plays a major role. I am therefore pro Cocon and have been a key user for a long time. I have been working with it for over 8 years. I think it is important that people enjoy their work and are satisfied. Together with the team we make sure that the projects are registered correctly and everything is up to date.”

What does the work mainly consist of?

“The type of work we receive is very diverse. From failures, reconstructions, post-connections to the new installation of FttH or FttO. In our department, we focus on engineering, making work packages and delivering them. Once the work has been carried out outside, all the necessary information is delivered back to us. We process that again and make sure that the project shows up in Cocon at status ready, including all the associated photos, designations, joints and the correct ducts that were used.”

How important is Cocon to you and to BAM as an organization?

“In this business, it has become one of the most important aspects of management and maintenance. Also in engineering. In the past, everything was managed in Autocad and Excel but you quickly make typos. If you want to make a connection from building A to B and there are 5 splices between them, where one fiber number is typed incorrectly, then your connection is no longer correct. And you don’t notice that very quickly. But if you do that over an entire network, then a lot of connections will fail to arrive.”

What does Cocon mean to you as a key user?

“In my mind, Cocon is a virtual status of how the outside is built. And what’s great about that is that everything in Cocon is unique. As it is laid outside, so you have to build it in Cocon. You can’t just start with the pipe or the cable. You really have to draw the locations/access points first, between these locations and/or access points you can then draw the tubes again. In these locations the cabinets should be placed, in these cabinets the drawers and only then the cable can be drawn from cabinet to cabinet. Cocon calls you to order when you want to do something that cannot be done. And that’s a good thing. Everything has to be in the right order. If you want to remove a cable just like that, Cocon indicates that it can’t be done. You have to loosen the welds first. That works the same as outside. If I pull out a cable that’s still attached to the cabinet outside, you’ll pull everything apart at the drawer. This is how Cocon prevents mistakes. Cheating is out of the question with Cocon.”

If you were to name one distinctive advantage about Cocon, what would it be?

“Big advantage of Cocon is that you have all the information in one central portal. No more Excel and other tooling. One central truth where everything comes together such as links to Klicon, soil risk maps, etc. In addition, other departments and our customers have a view version through CTW so they can look along and have full insight. All the necessary information is at your fingertips!”

Would you recommend Cocon?

“I have been doing that for years!”, said Wilco with a short and sweet answer.

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