FTTH Delivery with Automated Broadband Designer

Utility contractors delivering large-scale fiber network projects are under constant pressure to move faster without sacrificing quality. Tight schedules, complex permitting requirements, and distributed project teams make standardization important.

For Aecon Utilities, a North American provider of utility infrastructure solutions, this provided an opportunity to augment how fiber network design work was being delivered. By implementing Automated Broadband Designer (ABD), the team standardized critical workflows, automated engineering tasks, and accelerated FTTH project delivery without impacting active production work.

From Evaluation to Production

Aecon Utilities’ leadership team first connected with SBS at the Fiber Connect conference while evaluating options to standardize telecom engineering workflows across low-level design, permitting, and construction package development.

That conversation led to a technical workshop, where the teams evaluated whether ABD could support operational requirements in production environments.

The objectives were practical and measurable:

• Standardize engineering workflows and CAD outputs
• Improve drawing quality and consistency
• Increase productivity
• Reduce manual QA/QC effort
• Avoid impacts to active project delivery

Rather than deploying ABD in isolation, the implementation was built around a live FTTH project with complex delivery requirements. This allowed Aecon Utilities to evaluate the platform under real production conditions while developing internal standards and workflows directly in the software.

By the end of the project, the team had fully transitioned into production use.

Eliminating Manual BOM Work

One of the most immediate operational improvements came from automated bill of materials generation.

ABD generates the BOM directly from the design model and continuously updates it throughout the engineering process. That removed one of the most time-consuming parts of FTTH design delivery.

Since the initial deployment, Aecon Utilities has independently configured ABD for two additional broadband network projects.

Standardization Built Into the Workflow

The deployment demonstrates what design automation looks like when it is integrated directly into day-to-day engineering work rather than layered on afterward.

Engineering standards are configured into the platform itself instead of enforced manually during review cycles. Construction documentation is generated directly from the design environment. QA/QC automation helps improves consistency across deliverables.

According to Stewart Fraser, Senior Manager at Aecon Utility Engineering:

“The ABD software has streamlined our FTTH delivery through standardized templates, extremely consistent CAD standard application, automated BOM generation, and built-in QA/QC automation. The result is better designs faster, cleaner, and a substantially simplified QA/QC process. The SBS team has been a wonderful partner providing thought leadership through a very quick design and deployment cycle.”

Scaling Fiber Network Delivery

As broadband funding programs continue driving large-scale FTTH deployment across North America, engineering organizations are being asked to deliver more projects, more quickly, and with tighter compliance requirements.

For firms managing fiber network construction at scale, automation is increasingly becoming operational infrastructure rather than an optional efficiency improvement.

This implementation shows what that transition can look like in practice: standardized workflows, automated deliverables, and reduced manual engineering effort from design through construction.