Vendor Relationships: Landscapers

When working on a full home automation job site, it is extremely important that integration professionals take a whole project view of the site. Crestron control systems, by their nature, reach out and connect to every system in the home, which is why working closely with other vendors on a project is vital to our success, as well as the end user experience. In the coming months we will be highlighting how we work on site with specific types of vendors to ensure our clients have concierge level service during all parts of the installation process.

Today we begin that series by discussing how we work alongside landscaping professionals to elevate their work and make every part of the job a success.

At first glance, landscaping and outdoor work may not seem like it would have anything to do with an automated home, but in reality they are connected in a myriad of ways. First and foremost, a properly built Crestron system relies on hard wired components throughout the entirety of the space, often including outdoor cameras, speakers, televisions, and swimming pools. More directly, Crestron systems can often include connections to yard irrigation and sprinkler systems which can be impacted by landscaping changes or a careless crew.

If a landscaping crew is working on site during our installation it can disrupt operations in significant ways. The first of which is simply access to the site, if major landscaping work is happening during our installation schedule which blocks entry to all or part of the home, our engineers can lose critical hours that could push us off a tight schedule. To combat this we communicate with the crew leader to ensure our schedules align and we properly prepare for loss of access.

Complicated landscape projects can also disrupt the delicate process of laying out conduit or fiber optic cables for outdoor audio or video systems. Oftentimes we will have to dig trenches or holes to house these enclosures or an outdoor speaker system, and without proper coordination with landscaping crews as to the locations and direction of these wire runs we are left open to the risk that during the landscape work they could accidentally damage or destroy a delicate part of the control system infrastructure.

As with every vendor we work with, we take the time to communicate and work with landscaping crews to bring them up to the level of excellence a client expects when working with GMI and the #DoneRightNotEasy crew. While many high end landscaping companies will be familiar with outdoor automation and audio/video components, many are not, which is why we take the time to educate and ask second level questions about their work and process so we can ensure positive performance and improvement all around. This extra effort and commitment to concierge level service is what allows us to keep our clients happy with not only their automation system, but with all the work going on in and around their home.