Performance monitoring: controlling your costs by defining your desired service level and performance criteria [telecommunication powering]

Operators of telecommunication networks own a large amount of specialised equipment. Procurement, selection, evaluation and approval of telecommunications equipment is basically focused on conformity of functional requirements and availability requirements. Each type of requirement has his own effect on the quality of service and the cost of operation. The availability requirements are the focus of this contribution. Operating companies have to go into severe testing and approval procedures before deciding on purchasing a particular apparatus or type of equipment. This is also true for power equipment. One of the reasons behind this effort is the wish to reduce the risk that equipment failure would occur at undesired levels. This contribution shows the principles with which it is possible to minimise the effort that has to be put into evaluating availability aspects of equipment before purchase during procurement and approval. The benefit of this method is that the total cost of ownership can be estimated much more accurately during this procurement and evaluation period. Especially, the methods of handling the statistics and the use of installed base data are explained. The method described here is being used by PTT Telecom of the Netherlands especially for telecommunication power supplies and was developed by the department for operational service management in collaboration with service development and the purchasing department.