Global Supply Chain Provider

It was time to set some IT standards for the US-based headquarters of a global supply chain provider for the automobile industry. When management decided to build a site in the Midwest to support operations across the US, Matrix Integration was called in to plan the technology for the location – as well as provide a testing ground and blueprint for the IT infrastructure across all 10+ locations countrywide.

Specifically, the company was looking for a consistent and scalable solution for both IT and operations managers so IT professionals could see the system as a whole and gain access to any applications they needed at any given time. They also wanted the solution to be secure and have redundancies to prevent any downtime, a critical factor for any just-in-time supplier. They needed the solution to be able to be managed locally, as well as from a central IT Management group. They wanted a single pane of glass solution that also gave them security with manageability.

Matrix Integration provided thorough planning services to ensure that the IT managers at the company’s headquarters had all the technology they needed to support regional and national operations. After weighing capabilities and costs, Matrix Integration and the automotive supplier chose a solution based on Cisco Meraki as well as Hewlett Packard Enterprise servers with Nimble storage. The networking, data center and storage solutions are just a piece of the infrastructure that Matrix has helped the client implement. Along with several cloud software solutions to help manage back ups, end user security, email and email security, the company has continued to accelerate the solutions to streamline work flows and allow them to ensure they are prepared to handle the workloads needed for production.

In addition, Matrix Integration also created and now hosts a fully virtual IPT phone system, which can seamlessly connect callers internal and external with any of the locations without redirecting them to call back in or tying up trunks or lines. The solution helps reduce the clients initial costs of purchasing new phone systems for each location that could be networked together, in addition to reducing the overall phone costs associated with PRI’s and traditional phone lines.

Now that the new facility is up and running, Matrix Integration and the supply chain company are on to the next step of expanding and replicating the IT infrastructure to streamline operations across the US. Matrix Integration is on-call 24/7 as part of a customized MiAssurance agreement, which includes systems monitoring, managed backups, hardware procurement, as well as long-term strategy and planning.

Within 18 months, the company has been able to save time and costs on network management, which is now greatly simplified. These savings will be amplified in the long term as these technologies are implemented at other sites.