Plano, Texas
Simpson Strong-Tie is a global leader in engineered structural connectors, fasteners, anchors, and building solutions used to make structures safer and stronger. When the company built its new Plano, Texas office, they wanted an executive briefing center and customer experience environment where visitors could engage with the company’s products, technology, and history through interactive digital experiences.
Early planning centered on the experience the company wanted to create rather than on equipment selection, and the resulting design brought executive collaboration, customer engagement, product education, and hybrid communications into a single technology ecosystem across 19 rooms and three distinct system types.
Interactive Direct View LED Video Walls and Touch-Enabled Collaboration
The facility features a pair of combinable presentation spaces that can either operate independently or open into one larger venue. One functions as the boardroom, and the other serves as the customer experience side. Each space is anchored by a Planar Direct View LED video wall, with two 98-inch displays supporting the room.
The video wall is fully touch-enabled through an infrared touch overlay mounted around the perimeter of the display, allowing multiple users to manipulate digital content across the full width of the wall. The interactive layer gives visitors a canvas where they can move, zoom, and arrange product imagery, presentations, and multimedia during a briefing rather than passively watching a slide deck.
The reception area extends the same idea with a large Planar touch display running an interactive digital timeline of Simpson Strong-Tie’s history. Visitors select any year from 1971 through the present and pull up the company’s story for that moment.
RFID Product Demonstration System and Custom Integration
One of the most distinctive elements of the installation is an RFID-enabled product demonstration system that links physical Simpson Strong-Tie hardware to digital content. RFID tags are applied to individual products, and readers are concealed beneath a demonstration surface. When a product is set on the table, the system automatically calls up drawings, specifications, imagery, and supporting information on the display.
Ford AV built the system using custom programming paired with RFID readers, then integrated the output into the room’s collaboration platform. This turns a traditional product demonstration into a hands-on learning experience where a customer can pick up a connector or fastener and immediately see the engineering behind it.
Auto-Tracking AI Cameras and Multi-Configuration Room Programming
The primary presentation space transitions between executive boardroom, classroom, town hall, rounds, and podium presentation layouts. Supporting that flexibility required a camera and audio system that could follow the room rather than force the room to accommodate the technology.
Eight ceiling-mounted Crestron AI auto-tracking cameras were installed throughout the space, paired with ceiling microphone arrays and distributed speakers. Ford AV developed custom Crestron programming with four preconfigured camera scenes, each mapped to a physical room setup. An operator selects the current layout from the touch panel and the camera framing, tracking behavior, and audio pickup adjust accordingly. Room combining is supported by partition sensors that report the current state of the movable wall back to the control system.
Executive offices and additional meeting rooms were standardized as Microsoft Teams Rooms with a display and integrated camera bar, giving each executive a video conferencing setup at the small round table adjacent to their desk.
Ceiling Coordination and Custom Mounting in a Dense Plenum
Ceiling space in the main presentation rooms was heavily contested. Eight cameras, ceiling microphone arrays, speakers, lighting, fire suppression, and HVAC all competed for the same real estate, with the added constraint of preserving the architectural design intent in a high-visibility space.
Ford AV developed custom mounting solutions to place each device where system performance required it, while working around the other trades’ infrastructure. Rather than pushing conflicts back to the general contractor and other trades, the project team consistently arrived with a proposed solution.
“We always brought a solution to them, rather than saying you need to move this or do that.”
— Ford AV Project Team
Managing Scope Growth Against a Fixed Occupancy Date
Simpson Strong-Tie continued refining its vision throughout construction, and the scope expanded substantially between contract and completion. The occupancy date did not move.
The largest single addition was an enterprise room scheduling deployment covering more than 170 meeting rooms, offices, and collaboration spaces across the facility. Absorbing that volume inside the original schedule required additional install crews, extended shifts, and careful sequencing against the other trades still finishing the building.
“The customer was happy that we were willing to go back and make those changes.”
— Ford AV Project Team
Other changes cascaded from adjacent trades. A recessed projection screen already installed in a hard deck ceiling had to be removed and repositioned five inches after a change to the room’s lighting layout, which required demolition and refinish coordination in a nearly complete space.
- Enterprise Experience Center AV Integration – Ford AV designs and delivers audiovisual systems for executive briefing centers, customer experience spaces, and corporate headquarters.
- Interactive Display and Touch Collaboration Expertise – Large-format touch-enabled video walls, interactive digital timelines, and multi-user collaboration platforms that turn presentations into conversations.
- Custom Control System Programming – Multi-configuration room automation, AI camera scene management, and partition-aware room combining, all driven from an interface designed for non-technical users.
- Enterprise Room Scheduling at Scale – Facility-wide scheduling deployments across hundreds of meeting rooms, offices, and collaboration spaces, integrated with existing calendar and conferencing platforms.
- Trusted by Global Manufacturers and Enterprise Brands – Leading manufacturers and enterprise organizations trust Ford AV to deliver technology environments that hold up in front of their most important customers.
Ready to Build Your Executive Briefing or Experience Center?
