Colombia. With the video wall as the protagonist, the specialized resources of hardware, software, processing, visualization and sound systems, as well as automation, lighting and security devices, are the basis of an industry that in Colombia invests about 15 million dollars a year, compared to 100 million dollars throughout Latin America.
For the engineer Germán Alexis Cortés, manager of the company Insetrón - specialist in building automation and intelligent constructions -, for its demand for this sector in the country, "the most used technological resources for the Control Centers in hardware for video, are the videowall, the industrial monitors, the industrial computer stations, as well as the switches, routers and passive communication elements, controllers and panels, among many others."
As for audio, the most used equipment in the country for this type of implementation are audio management consoles, amplifiers, microphones, speakers and players, and with respect to integration software, there are countless resources and brands that stand out in the market.
In contrast to the previous figures, according to engineer Darío Ordóñez, manager of Cosmos Sistemas Integrados (CSI), an integrator company specialized in the design, construction and commissioning of control centers, which has more than 110 facilities in sectors such as hydrocarbons, telecommunications, transportation, industry, government and defense in Colombia, Panama and Ecuador, "The average value of a Control Center is directly proportional to the magnitude of the Operation. A Security Control Center of a building is not comparable to one of a textile industry or one of a hydroelectric plant."
From experience, for Ordoñez, the equipment he uses most in his implementations are display systems such as videowalls, LED LCD monitors, or direct LED displays and graphic and video signal processing systems. On the other hand, for its facilities, encrypted and encrypted satellite information systems for real-time monitoring of aircraft, ships, people, weapons and moving vehicles are commonly used. Likewise, complementary systems such as fire detection and extinguishing with clean agent, air conditioning with humidity control, energy backup (UPS), and digital audio and video systems, for alarm monitoring, CCTV, as well as ergonomic technical furniture".
By the number of implementations, the Colombian cities with the largest number of control centers are Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Cartagena, Bucaramanga and Barrancabermeja, in which, both public and private companies, use them to supervise and manage industrial and internal security processes, as well as for mobility and citizen security.
For Cortés, who in turn will be a speaker at the Control Rooms Summit, a meeting that for the first time is held in Colombia and will be held within the framework of the TecnoMultimedia InfoComm fair, these cities carry out several types of implementations with also dissimilar investments. "A control center dedicated to security can cost up to $700,000. If we move to an Audio/Video and Lighting control center, the costs can start at $30,000 and reach $500,000, but if the issue is only for communications, the costs are lower."
"In the case of an integrated and centralized control center, where all the technology is present and there is integration between different subsystems, we can talk about caps between US $ 100,000 and US $ 2,000,000. Now, we have to understand that some specialized and high-level control centers could cost more," says Cortés.
This type of automation in Colombia and the increasingly frequent investments of our companies can be explained by the growth of the country's formal industry, which according to ANDI is 9% in the last 5 years. This period stands out because the processes have gone from being manual or semi-automatic to fully automated by 20%.
For its part, ACOPI ensures that some processes start directly automated, however, significant capital is required to achieve it, so the vast majority of companies that may need it, still continue without a control center to automate their industrial management.
Companies of another level in the country such as multinationals, which by policy use control centers, have already begun to take other steps forward with Big Data applications, to protect their sensitive information, obviating mechanical, electrical or security problems.
Thanks to the dynamics of this market, the Control Centers, with the Control Rooms Summit event (http://colombia.controlroomssummit.com/), become this year one of the central themes of the specialized fair TecnoMultimedia InfoComm, which from November 15 to 17 will bring together in Corferias the exhibitors of the main brands in professional audio and video systems, unified communications, digital signage and automation.
The engineer Ordóñez, guest speaker at the Control Rooms Summit event clarifies that "this meeting is very important to put into perspective that one of the greatest benefits for this industry is to acquire a broader knowledge of the latest technologies present in the world, which entails the future implementation of more efficient Control Centers, applying the technology we have at hand today."
Finally, Ordoñez assures that "the countries that lead the Latin American market, in terms of the implementation of these technologies, are undoubtedly Mexico and Brazil, as they are large countries with large consumers, which results in an economy that allows us to have enough money to implement the latest developments. However, it should be noted that today we have in Colombia, for example in the Military Forces segment, greater technology applied than other countries in the region."
The academic meeting will address issues related to the design, assembly and operation of control centers, monitoring centers and operations rooms, among other topics of interest to administrators, managers, consultants and users of this segment.
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