Marine Corps University (MCU) added two facilities to its campus located at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, VA that required brand new, audiovisual systems and IT infrastructures. The new AV and IT systems would further the MCU mission to leverage and integrate state-of-the-art information and education technologies to promote student learning and the rich history and heritage of the Marine Corps. Karcher Group, Inc. (KGI) delivered a skillfully design and comprehensive systems that were well received by the client and ultimately awarded for a contract valued at $10 million dollars.
The massive project incorporated 35+ classrooms, a 300-student Lecture Hall, 500-person capacity Auditorium, centralized Help Desk for management and support of every room, over 200k feet of cabling, and 55 equipment racks; all of which as-built schematics were designed from a D-Tools application. Karcher Group’s strategy to fulfill all the technical requirements of the project was first to deliver a concise installation plan within the proposal, including conceptual design packages, on how the completed systems will function and the features of each system. Once the project commenced, KGI established a project timeline that included milestones to reach for each phase of the MCU project. When milestones were reached, KGI personnel tested each system component’s operability and provided end-user training, based on their application of use, on the functionality of each component.
To ensure KGI remained on target with the project timeline that was impacted by other trades, it doubled its personnel with new hires; trained and qualified professionals dedicated to MCU and its completion.
One of the biggest features of customization within the MCU project was the design and installation of the centralized Help Desk. The Help Desk would tie all rooms together so users experiencing any issues with the system components can use their touch panels to dispatch a technician for troubleshooting
assistance or have a technician remote-in and interface with the room control panel to fix an issue. Some of the specific equipment KGI selected to build the extensive list of AV systems were AMX Control modules and Enova DGX Video Switchers, Biamp Customized Digital Sound Processors, JBL speakers and Crown amplifiers for the MCU audio arrays, Planar 55” professional grade displays for a 6X6 video wall and individual configurations, Cisco VTC, the Christie Digital CP2230 projector with over 32,000 brilliant lumens for the auditorium, and Final Cut Pro integrated custom iMac Apple PC’s for the AV Processing Area.