A COMPUTER IMPLEMENTED METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR AUTOMATING THE PLANNING OF EQUIPMENT PLACEMENT IN A TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORK

A system and method for placing articles of manufacture or pieces of equipment at a remote site uses a central database and graphical representations. A site hierarchy, comprising a site, a building at the site, and a floor within the building, is created in the central database. The user can then create graphical objects on a floor at a building, which are also represented in the central database as sequences of points. Specifically, graphical objects are created for a floor within a structure, a zone within the floor, a planning unit within the zone, a row segment within the planning unit, and a footprint (where the article or piece of equipment is placed) within the row segment. The central database can also store tabular (non-graphical) data, regarding the physical characteristics of physical objects (such as the actual area of a row), as well as particular information for each footprint (such as an installation date, an activation date, etc.). Once the graphical objects are established in the hierarchy, a user can modify or view both the graphical data or the non-graphical data from the database.