Installation and maintenance as starting points for a design project

In the mid-1980s, information technology could be packed into a fraction of the space it had occupied in the previous decade. Nokia Telecom decided to design a new mechanics standard. The number of electronic circuits was reduced, but the number of pairs of cables carrying calls remained the same, meaning that the connections and installations became much more precise. At the same time, the cooling requirements of the electronics became proportionally larger for each card. All this placed special demands on the development of an installation- and maintenance-friendly mechanical structure.

A fully front-mounted design was chosen as the base structure. A 120 mm wide steel profile serves as the cable tray and support frame, to which the electronics cassettes and ventilation units are attached at the front. An essential part of the system is the service terminal, which allows the service technician to “move around” inside the electronic transmission system and remotely identify trouble spots. In this project, the designer was specifically responsible for solving the ergonomic problems of the system.