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The Situation
The Architectural Products Group (APG) of Oldcastle provides a wide range of architectural masonry and ornamental concrete products, roof tiles,
segmental retaining walls and interlocking pavers. Oldcastle APG is the largest concrete masonry and do-it-yourself provider in the USA with sales approaching $1 billion. APG currently has over 70 locations
across the USA. Oldcastle is a subsidiary of CRH plc, which is headquartered in Ireland and has operations in 19 countries. CRH has over 40,000 employees at more than 1,300 locations worldwide with annual sales of
over $5 billion. CRH is ranked among the top 4 building materials companies in the world in terms of market capitalization.
The Challenge
APG is part of a company with the philosophy of creating extremely rapid growth usually through acquisition (5 to 8 companies per year).
Since it was not financially possible to have IT staff at all 70 locations, they tried to manage the far-flung IT infrastructures of the entire Group with a very small, regionalized IT staff of 8 people. The IT staff was constantly challenged with managing day-to-day IT operations and trying to keep their technical skill sets up to date. APGs heterogeneous, non-standardized IT infrastructure required the IT staff to be proficient in UNIX, NT, LAN technology, WAN technology, Cisco Systems equipment and IOS software, and many others.
The Response
The Technology Services Group (TSG) of Digital Controls responded to APG's needs with a SureNet™ Enterprise Support Agreement (ESA). The
agreement provides a single point of contact for the support of APG's IT infrastructure. We provide APG with support for their hardware, software and entire network through a service offering called SureNet
Network Operations and Administration Support. Network Operations and Administration Support entails maintaining more than the hardware and software required to run the network. It also includes:
- Multi-vendor resolution-TSG is APG's advocate when multiple
hardware, software or carrier vendors are involved. We get in the middle of it, to help isolate the problem and bring about a quick resolution.
- Network change support and consultation-We recommend
hardware/software to be used for new configurations or changes to existing configurations.
This includes interoperability research to make sure the proposed changes work with the current environment and forward thinking to see how the acquisition of a new company might impact the current network/infrastructure.
- Version Review-We review the existing version of network O/S
and equipment IOS to determine if they meet the needs of the new configurations or changes to the current netwrok/infrastructure.
- Comprehensive Problem Solving-Many problems arose in the past
due to the heterogeneous nature of APGs infrastructure. With the extremely broad range of skill sets that TSG has, along with our testing lab, most problems are now solved very quickly.
As part of the Enterprise Support Agreement, TSG provides many other services over and above SureNet Network Operations and Administration
Support for APG. These services include:
- Program to standardize the hardware and software used in APGs IT infrastructure. This is reinforced with a program to manage the procurement
of day-to-day operational and tactical IT products and supplies. This IT product procurement program is deployed through the Digital BUY Direct service that TSG offers its customers.
- Quarterly Support Reviews and forward looking Project Planning.
- Assistance with the development of a Standard Operations and Procedures Manual.
- Operations and Administration Support for servers and operating systems.
- First, second and third level utility software support.
- Advisory program to help APG choose the best IT infrastructure hardware and software for their needs.
The Result
"The Technology Services Group of Digital Controls has
exceeded all of our expectations" - Director of Information Technology Oldcastle-APG.
The total cost to support APG's IT infrastructure has been lowered significantly. APG no longer has to diagnose network environment problems
on their own. The time to repair or recover from problems is much shorter now. User satisfaction is up. IT training costs are down because they no longer need such a wide range of technical skills and
knowledge in house. The costs associated with buying equipment that is not correct for their needs have been reduced through the procurement service from Digital BUY Direct.
Costs have also been avoided because TSG recycles and re-deploys infrastructure assets when possible. Finally, looking to the future, we are starting to work closely with APG to plan a company-wide ERP sytstem rollout. This close partnership will result in the most effective and cost efficient method to implement this strategic new business application and the associated infrastructure.
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