AIB delivers a collaborative workspace at Central Park

With staff across Dublin, Ireland, the UK and the US, AIB Group faces a challengeshared by many large corporations - how to provide the ability for its staff to communicate more efficiently across offices and borders.

When relocating over 500 technical support staff to the one of seven new buildings at Central Park, 10km south of Dublin City Centre, AIB Group had the opportunity to take a blank canvas and design it to meet the needs of staff and develop a blueprint for future redevelopment.

“Collaboration is the cornerstone of the way we work within AIB,"said Muiris O'Sullivan, Project Manager, AIB. "We wanted to ensure we were able to collaborate efficiently both locally, using Audio Visual technology within the office, and remotely through videoconferencing."

“A lot of the teams that are located at Central Park are from our technical and digital department, so they had experience in the types of technology that are available and had a large input in what would work for them.”

“Our feedback to date from our staff has been very positive in terms of their ability to actually use the technology and the benefits that it's bringing through collaboration in general workspaces.”

Seven floors, 200 displays

Across seven floors, AIB has installed a total of nearly 200 Panasonic professional displays. Integrated by McKeon Group, the technology blueprint is already being considered for three further sites which will take the total number of displays to over 500.

At Central Park, each floor has a minimum of four meeting rooms. Depending on the room size, each is equipped with either one or two 55 or 75 inch touchscreen panels. Additionally, there are around ten breakout spaces on each floor, which are predominantly equipped with 43 inch touch screen panels.

“Our feedback to date from our staff has been very positive in terms of their ability to actually use the technology and the benefits that it's bringing through collaboration in general workspaces,” adds Muiris O'Sullivan.

Digital signage is prevalent throughout the building. A total of 54 TH-43LFE8E, Full HD professional displays are used both in communal areas for signage, within the company restaurant space and in the office spaces as both a dashboard for sharing vital information within teams, and for sharing corporate messages.

“When we looked at Central Park at the start, we also wanted to enhance the staff experience at work. Part of that was a connected digital signage solution, we wanted to be able to broadcast both local or corporate messages to the staff, to avoid having to send emails to staff about an event or celebration,” adds O'Sullivan.

Changing Work Culture

One of the key AV changes that has led to work style changes within AIB is the introduction of several media benches on each of the six office floors. These long, standing benches are each equipped with a 43-inch touchscreen panel.

“The media benches are providing areas for teams to have scrum meetings. The idea is that there are multiple spaces on each floor where people can get together without taking up traditional meeting rooms,” adds O'Sullivan. “We are waiting for data in terms of usage of the various facilities, but just from walking the building and talking to the staff, we've seen good uptake for all of the technology and certainly the use of videoconferencing has been really impressive.”

"We were looking for reliability as a main cornerstone for the technology but we also needed to ensure we had usability too. Panasonic was a natural fit."

Statement Video Wall

A statement nine screen video wall is also in use in reception. In addition to branded corporate content, the screen is used for internal meetings and CEO announcements.

Tomas Mac Eoin, Managing Director McKeon Group, said, “AIB wanted us to deliver a flexible workspace, so that their staff could work together in both an informal and formal way. The number of break out spaces is virtually unprecedented in corporate spaces.”

“We've installed ClickShare so that staff can use any device to get content on screen, annotation software allows teams to work together to make changes to that content. In terms of the type of development AIB is doing here, the building really delivers.”

World Leading Technology

“The AV solution was always going to be of key importance to the success of this project,” said Muiris O'Sullivan. “The project was tendered and we were delighted when McKeon Group was chosen as our preferred supplier because we have worked with them in our head office estate in the past."

“It is a hugely important project for the bank. It is the first time we have opened a new building of this scale in a significant period of time, so having people around me with a high level of professionalism and expertise made my job a lot easier."

“We wanted a world class, world leading technology brand within the building itself. We were looking for reliability as a main cornerstone for the technology but we also needed to ensure we had usability too. Panasonic was a natural fit. Once it's proven here, we'll look to roll it out across the head office estate."

“The main objective was to ensure we provided our staff with a building that was cutting edge in regards to both its design and technology. I feel that we've achieved that at Central Park and we'll use this building as our template in terms of how we implement AV.”

Kit list

TH-43LFE8 58
TH-43LFE8E-IR 60
TH-49LFV8 9
TH-55LFE8E-IR 54
TH-75BQE1 10
TH-55LFE8 6
PT-RZ970 2