Real time sampling of utilization at Ericsson Test Plants

Abstract: This master’s thesis has been written within the field of Electrical Engineering at the Department of Science and Technology, Linköping University. The work has been carried out at Ericsson’s site in Linköping during the spring of 2010. The purpose of this master thesis was to construct a model which could capture and present the utilization rate of test equipment at a telecom company in general. Since this field has not been studied very much in the past, it was decided to study a model from the production industry and try to reuse some of the basic ideas from this model. From this generic model a recommendation is given as to how the model could be used by implementing a Common Utilization Tool, which could be used to store, configure and present utilization data from all types of equipment in Ericsson’s test environment. This common utilization tool will use measurement modules that will both collect and classify the state of the equipment and deliver the result to a common database. To this Common Utilization Tool a measurement module has been implemented which samples Base Station Controllers (BSC) in Ericsson’s test environment state; used, unused and down. This implementation is also validated against real measured data from testers to conclude if the results are accurate.