IT Services for Manufacturing

The Context For manufacturing companies, dependable, highly efficient IT networks have become essential to doing business.

The Client Elpac Electronics counts on a reliable, high-performance IT network to support the manufacture of its products at locations in both California and China.

The Problem The various IT support resources Elpac hired over the years consistently proved ineffective.

The Choice All Covered offered the level of competence and professionalism in IT management and planning that Elpac sought.

The Results With All Covered’s help, Elpac’s IT and network problems have been resolved, and plans put in place to tackle potential problems well before they become real ones.

IT Services from All Covered Can Make Your IT Infrastructure Almost Invisible

Case Study: Elpac Electronics

The Context

For manufacturing companies, reliable, high-performance IT networks are as basic to doing business as phone systems or office supplies. With a combination of manufacturing resource planning (MRP) and other business software, these networks perform unglamorous but indispensable tasks such as supporting inventory and production flows, handling accounting, and facilitating communication among employees. As more manufacturing firms open offshore facilities, IT has become even more critical, turning data transmission and communications across oceans from slow, cumbersome, and costly operations into fast, easy, and highly cost effective ones.

The Client

Headquartered in Irvine, California, with facilities in Irvine and Shenzhen, China, Elpac Electronics is a privately held ISO 9001:2000 certified manufacturer of power supplies, AC adapters, custom docking stations, and battery chargers. To support manufacturing at both locations, Elpac depends on a network of 30 Windows-based computers and three servers which perform various functions such as accounting, MRP and email. To share critical data with Shenzhen, Elpac uses a secure FTP server.

The Problem

For years, Elpac depended on various people to handle IT. These ranged from an in-house personnel manager, who enjoyed tinkering with computers, to local IT technicians, who promised great results at low hourly rates. But, no matter who was on the case, the results were usually far from great. “I was amazed at how much time was spent accomplishing so little,” recalls Elpac’s COO Marshall Wright. “When we had a problem, someone would come in and fix it. Then a couple of days later, the problem would be there again. No one ever seemed to get to the root cause.”

The Choice

Frustrated with the ongoing IT problems, Elpac decided to take a different approach and brought in All Covered. “The hourly rate was higher,” says Marshall, “but we wanted a more professional resource we could count on to solve the problems we had. We also liked that All Covered provided back up. If our regular consultant was unavailable, someone else from All Covered could come and help us out.”

Enter All Covered

Once on the job, All Covered addressed a wide range of computing and network issues, including:

• Windows 2000 upgrades;
• A server-based company-wide spam filtering solution;
• A new firewall for greater security;
• A new network switch for better performance;
• A secure FTP site for the Shenzhen facilities, which enables documents to be uploaded by Irvine and then downloaded in read-only form by employees in China;
• A SBS (Small Business Server) 2003 upgrade

In addition, Marshall is pleased with All Covered’s proactive approach to network management. “Before we worked with All Covered,” Marshall notes, “everything was reactive. It was a case of ‘Now that the building’s burning, let’s put in some fire alarms. But, instead of waiting until we get into trouble, All Covered gives us regular appraisals of where we are and where we should be headed. Then, with our okay, they act on them.”

To support these and other efforts, All Covered also delivers All Covered Care, a suite of regularly scheduled services from virus protection to long-range network planning that assure network security and stability and make sure that potential problems are identified and addressed before they become real ones. Elpac has been benefiting from All Covered Care since March 2001.

The Results

For Marshall Wright and Elpac Electronics, the bottom line has been All Covered’s competence and professionalism. “They’re the only people we’ve ever worked with that do it right all the time,” says Marshall. “We’ve never had a problem All Covered didn’t nail right away. And that means everything to us. All Covered handles IT so I don’t have to.”

Finding the Right IT Services Provider for Your Company

For many small businesses, hiring an IT firm on an “as needed” basis sounds like a great idea. According to the Gartner Group and other industry research firms, the right IT services provider can reduce product selection, procurement, implementation, maintenance, and management costs of small businesses by 20–30%. It can also increase the reliability and performance of small businesses IT operations, resulting in greater return on investment and higher employee productivity.

But the critical word here is “right.” While local IT technicians are easy to find and often very inexpensive, their competence and effectiveness can—as Elpac Electronics found—vary widely.

Who is the right IT services partner for you—the one that frees you to focus less on IT problems and more on your core business? When it comes to the manufacturing industry, no other national IT services provider has served more companies, offered greater breadth or depth of expertise, or enjoyed more success than All Covered.

For Elpac Electronics, All Covered has Made IT "Invisible."

“All Covered makes IT invisible—something we don’t worry about because problems are addressed so quickly and competently. Many people have handled our IT, but only All Covered has done it right. Once, after years of great All Covered service, we got greedy and opted for a cheaper alternative. We realized what a bad decision we’d made. Soon after that, All Covered was back.”
-Marshall Wright, COO, Elpac Electronics, Inc.

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