Over the last three years, Mr. Mendes has set in motion the complete reengineering of PBS' Broadcast and Information Technology infrastructures. His scope of responsibility includes the previously discrete Broadcast Engineering, Information Technology and Interconnection Replacement Office areas now successfully operating as an integrated Enterprise Technology department. The combination of these areas was accomplished without any disruption to the work environment and with virtually no staff turnover.
From an operational standpoint, infrastructure reliability and overall system availability experienced substantial increases and achieved an overall record 99.982% rating in FY03 and 99.984% in FY04. YTD numbers for FY05 stand at 99.991%, on pace for yet another record breaking performance.
From an evolutionary standpoint, under Mr. Mendes' aegis, PBS' Enterprise Technology team has developed several award winning initiatives that, utilizing Supply Chain Management principles in combination with broadcasting and IT best practices, are redefining PBS' entire set of workflows and operational tenets. These include:
- One ingest, one codec cycle, content acquisition with frame accurate metadata.
- Deployment of mission critical broadcast resource planning software (BroadView)
- Completion of a multi-tiered, unified broadcast storage environment.
- Development of a $177M IP-over-satellite based system for content distribution (NGIS)
- Creation of a standalone, unattended, remotely monitored Master Control solution (ACE).
Overall system-wide cost savings for these projects has been estimated by McKinsey and Co. to exceed $150 million per year. In addition, Mr. Mendes has personally negotiated preferred vendor agreements that have resulted in aggregated savings in excess of $12 million over the last 5 fiscal years.
Simultaneously, PBS has completed several other projects that have further streamlined its overall technical environment, including:
- Deployment of an award-winning, I-SCSI based, storage strategy that has slashed storage related costs and administration by 40%.
- Implementation of blade server infrastructure that has reduced maintenance, datacenter footprint, HVAC and administration costs by over 50% over a two year period.
- Utilization of advanced compression technology that has reduced bandwidth associated cost for the award winning PBS.org web site by $400,000 during the 2004 FY.