dcVAST
Success Story
Armin Industries
Situation
Armin Industries is a tooling manufacturing company that operates two businesses – a custom tooling manufacturing business focused on injection molds, and a plastic injection molding business. Armin employs 70 tool and die makers and machinists, and is growing steadily now that the recession is easing. Armin’s customers are a group of Fortune 50 companies that outsource the manufacture of tooling and their injection molding needs to this specialty company.
Armin utilizes computing technology in sales and estimating, in ERP for order processing and manufacturing planning, in CAD/CAM, and in general business systems. Like many SMB companies, certain employees need to be flexible and multi-tasking.
Problem to be Solved
Al Mason is one of those multi-tasking individuals. Al was an accountant for Armin, and also served as the company’s IT department doing IT administration and management. Al was the entire resource for keeping the computer systems up and functioning. Two years ago, when Al’s boss retired, he was promoted to Company Controller. Al no longer had time to totally manage IT. Al began to consider the hiring of a full time IT generalist – an individual with broad based knowledge of hardware (servers, desktops, storage), software (applications and management software), networking, security, systems administration, trouble shooting, user support, etc. Al was also involved in looking at a complete IT infrastructure refresh project.
Al was using the services of dcVAST, an IT service company in Downers Grove, IL to provide hardware maintenance and support for his management software. He was meeting with them to discuss his technology refresh and mentioned the need for a full time IT person. dcVAST suggested that Al consider a service called IaaS,(Infrastructure-as-a-Service). IaaS was a way for Armin to outsource their IT to an expert, dcVAST, much as Armin’s customers outsource tooling and molding to them. Al liked the idea of outsourcing the headaches associated with running an IT function and sold it to Armin’s management
The dcVAST Solution
Under IaaS, dcVAST owns the servers, desktops, laptops, networking components, and system management software. The systems are installed at Armin’s plant, resulting in a private cloud type of service. dcVAST monitors the operation on a 24x7 basis, and identifies problems before they become outages. dcVAST performs remote administration and management services, with occasional visit to the Armin site. dcVAST also manages all data backup and recovery operations, and has recently installed a WiFi network in the facility.
Results
Al Mason declares this new arrangement is a success, “We are extremely happy with the IaaS service from dcVAST, said Mason, “We now can spend all of our time focusing on our core business and not being interrupted with IT problems.” “dcVAST is a great company and we trust them to take care of IT for us.”
Al states that Armin’s costs for this service are less than they would be paying for a full time IT manager.
They would have also needed the help of a half time contractor, in addition to the IT person, to keep up with the load. Al stated that, “We have not lost any control by outsourcing. We have a great interface to dcVAST and their primary engineer is just like having our own employee!” IaaS has been a huge success for Al Mason and Armin Industries.