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TUI

TUI Group is the largest leisure, travel and tourism company in the world. Previously known as Thomson Holidays in the UK, TUI UK & Ireland serves 6 million holidaymakers and employs 12,500 people from travel agents to cabin crew, and engineers to back office staff. The UK Head Office in Luton employs more than 3000 people and advances in technology meant that a new IT network was required to allow faster applications, consistent WiFi, and to ensure an efficient and productive workplace. With a large building and 24/7 operations, TUI required a trusted, experienced partner and ACCL was selected.

Custom Solution

ACCL worked closely with TUI to understand their specific requirements and identified that a new 10 gigabit network was required, with a new fibre optic backbone linking 20 network cabinets. The Head Office network supports all the IT systems as well as the building access control, meeting room system, WiFi and CCTV.

Ensuring business as usual

Maintaining business as usual was critical for TUI’s 24/7 operations and once the specification and timing for the project was agreed, ACCL developed a plan, with back-up contingencies, split into phases.

  • Phase 1: The existing fibre backbone would not be able to support the new 10Gig switches and so a new fibre network was installed by an 8 man ACCL team over 2 weekends. 8 kilometres of OM4 fibre optic cable and a total of 40 fibre cables were diversely run under floors and above ceilings, split so that the whole network in the building could never go down.
  • Phase 2: The existing network configuration was not recorded and the cabinet cabling was disorganised, with unlabelled cables. An audit was needed to identify and document the functions of all of the circuits, and to create a clear plan for the new cabling together with a data cabinet tidy service.
  • Phase 3: TUI purchased the 65 CISCO switches needed for the upgrade and ACCL built, configured and tested these at their off-site build labs, to ensure that all components functioned correctly.
  • Phase 4: Over 4 weekends, each of the 4 floors of the building was in turn connected to the new network. The existing cabling was checked on the Friday night and removed from the cabinet, allowing the new cabling and switches to be connected on Saturday.

The new cabling was carefully planned, labelled and documented, ensuring that any future changes will be straightforward. On the Sunday, all the IT equipment and other systems on the floor were checked, and during Monday’s troubleshooting there were never more than 3 fault calls due to the careful planning. This phase required close liaison with TUI employees, to ensure that all weekend workers were relocated to active network areas in advance.

ACCL project managed the work, working closely with the TUI team to ensure that all challenges were overcome and all of the work was completed to schedule, with minimal TUI employee disruption.

A network for the future

  • Faster network applications have increased employee productivity.
  • Greater energy efficiency save money, as organised cabling allows easier air penetration and system cooling.
  • Structure and well documented network to allow future additions and changes.
  • Minimal business disruption whilst the programme was carried out.

Scott Ronan, General Manager Technical Services, at TUI UK and Ireland commented:

“Installation of our new network was an amazing piece of team work. To coordinate this work around other issues was challenging, but Wayne and the ACCL team were great, and I am delighted that they will be TUI UK and Ireland’s preferred cabling partner going forwards.”

Wayne Connors, Managing Director at ACCL responded:

“This was a challenging project, both due to the technical aspects and the co-ordination required to maintain business as usual operations throughout. I am very pleased that everyone’s hard work paid off and I am looking forward to working with TUI on future projects in the coming months.”