How to Choose a Data Centre Cabling Subcontractor: 9 Questions

Most guides to choosing a subcontractor are written by someone selling the answer. This one is written from the supply side too, so it includes the questions that are awkward for us. If a supplier hesitates on any of the nine, the hesitation tells you something.

1. Have these people worked together before?

Engineers who know each other’s pace install faster than strangers with the same cards. Ask whether the team proposed has worked together, or is a list put together this week. Many labour suppliers hold a database of names, and the first week on site is spent finding out who can terminate.

2. When does the compliance pack reach me?

There are two answers: before anyone travels, or after. Too often it is after. The team mobilises and the documents are chased behind them. That works until one engineer is turned away at the gate, and then the cost is the whole team’s first morning.

Ask for the pack to be a written condition of mobilisation, and see whether the answer changes.

3. Who checks that a permit allows this work?

Few people ask this, and it is where European deployments break. A residence permit is not a work permit, and the conditions printed on it decide what the holder may legally do: employed work, self-employed work, or neither. Two permits that look the same on a scan can carry different rights.

A supplier who collects documents will tell you everyone has a permit. A supplier who reads them will tell you which people cannot do the job you are offering.

4. What happens if someone underperforms?

“We will find a replacement” means a new search and a new delay while your programme waits. “We replace from engineers already checked and on our register” means someone else can start once their induction is booked. Ask before you need it, because that is the only time the answer is easy to get.

5. Is the rate one number, in writing before travel?

Ask what the rate covers and what is charged separately. Then ask for it in writing before anyone books a flight. A supplier who resists this is showing you how the invoice will look.

• Is a team lead included, or charged as extra?
• Are travel and accommodation inside the rate, or quoted on separate lines?
• What triggers overtime, and does it need your written instruction?
• Is there an introduction fee, or a transfer fee if you later take someone on directly?

6. Who answers the phone at six in the morning?

On the day someone does not turn up, you need the person who has that engineer’s number, not an account manager who will look into it. Ask for a named contact for the life of the project, and ask whether they answer outside office hours. Large suppliers often cannot promise this.

7. Can the engineers certify, or only install?

Testing to specification and producing a results pack that passes a client audit is a separate skill from installing: the right test tier, insertion loss and reflectance, and labels that match the drawings. On most programmes, handover slips on the paperwork behind the installation more often than on the installation itself.

8. Who holds the contract with each engineer?

Every engineer should be engaged under a written contract, with terms that match yours. If a supplier is vague about this, the exposure does not go away. It moves to you.

9. Will you approach my client?

If you are an agency or a contractor bringing in a subcontractor, this matters most and is asked least. The answer should be a written term of the supply agreement, because a term can be enforced.

In short

A good subcontractor answers all nine without checking. A weak one answers the first two well and starts hedging at the third.

If you have a live requirement and want us to answer these nine about ourselves, send the roles, the location and the dates to gotodataworks3@gmail.com or call +44 7934 524074. On active projects we reply the same working day. If we cannot cover it, the first reply says so.