Thompson Plastics Case Study
The customer
Thompson Plastics is the UK's leading manufacturer of thermoformed plastic components for touring caravans, bathrooms, forklifts, agricultural vehicles and signs. The Thompson Plastics Group has a turnover of over £30million and operates in the supply chain to the automotive industry as well as the leisure products industry. The Group is headquartered in Hessle, Humberside and has manufacturing sites spread across the UK in Bridgend, South Wales, Crewe, Manchester and Co. Durham.
The challenge
All the sites needed close links in order to communicate effectively which dictated a need for a reliable, cost effective wide area network (WAN) link to the headquarter's IT department. The previous WAN was unreliable with a mixture of leased lines and broadband virtual private network connections.
The main challenge was the time it took to update the latest order books. It would often take one person a whole day to do once a week because of the unreliable network connection. In addition, the lack of a reliable connection was affecting access to email, printing ability and computer aided design (CAD) systems. The ERP system currently has 80 users, which is expected to grow and there are approximately 200 PC users with access to group resources, centralised email and CAD applications. All these users required consistent and reliable access to these systems.
This mixed infrastructure also meant that the systems were difficult to manage. With several providers, and no service level agreements (SLA) in place, the reliability of the connection and timings for any necessary downtime could not be guaranteed. Problems were not resolved as Thompson Plastics was being passed between providers, with no-one taking responsibility. As Thompson Plastics is located in an area with an incumbent supplier it was difficult for them to rely on any consistent service level and also meant there was little negotiation on the cost of the service provided.
The solution
The Group employs three centrally-based IT personnel; with such a small IT department, it needed a communications company which could provide second to-none network support services above and beyond those provided by a local service provider. The team could then focus on proactive work rather than fire-fighting connection problems between providers. It also needed a provider that could expand the network as the company grew, instead of simply adding further leased line or broadband connections. Providing a cost effective data network as well as the scalability to meet the demands of the remote manufacturing plants was an essential requirement.
We needed to move away from the traditional WAN provision of leased line services from local telecom providers. We had no support and recently when a fire occurred it knocked out the leased lines in Manchester and as a result major disruption occurred at the factory. Users could not access the main ERP and email systems for more than three days whilst BT repaired the leased line said David Patterson, IT Director, Thompson Plastics. Viatel solved the problems around connection reliability and outages, quickly demonstrating their ability to provide us with a flexible and robust network to support our growing needs, as well as providing the management services on top, leaving our IT personnel free to do their jobs.
Viatel put in place VPN/Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network links between Hessle, Crewe, Co. Durham and Bridgend and a managed leased line to Manchester. This was the best solution for the sites and all links were up in six months. The Viatel management services gave Thompson Plastics the network support they needed to ensure good communications between the sites. Viatel also committed to a comprehensive service level agreement.
The benefits
The resulting reliable performance of the network has produced efficiencies in day-to-day processing, less downtime and far fewer support issues. In addition, Viatel provides service and performance level guarantees, so any problems are dealt with quickly.
The main challenge of reducing the time taken to update the order book has been achieved. It now takes a maximum of three hours a week to enter the sales orders compared with a whole day using the previous network. Parts are ordered much more effectively and the always on connection enables the operators to book orders reliably without constant breaks in service and having to re-enter lost details.
In addition, networks costs for the Manchester office have been reduced by a third, whilst the bandwidth has doubled and the reliability of access to email, printing and CAD have been greatly improved. This increased bandwidth has also allowed Thompson Plastics to provide up to 10 remote laptop users with secure and reliable access.
It was a bright move on our part to implement Viatel's network. It was a big leap of faith to use someone else as the providers in our area have something of a monopoly and it has always been the belief that as an SME we couldn't afford to go elsewhere.
Thompson Plastics is currently discussing moving its voice services to Viatel's offering in order to further increase cost savings and enhanced management capabilities.
