Embracing Agility and Simplicity to Grow in Manufacturing

Agility is a well-used term in the manufacturing industry. Agility, the ability to sense and respond to changes in the market, is critical for manufacturers to grow and succeed in an increasingly globalized and competitive world. At Dell, we help manufacturers with all aspects of their IT infrastructure to achieve this important capability and increase IT efficiency. 

Dell recently partnered with Insteel Industries to help the steel manufacturer with a variety of improvements to its IT infrastructure. With Insteel’s transition to Windows Server 2008r2, Dell helped the organization set up a virtualized architecture which enabled Insteel to avoid  purchasing new hardware in the transition. And to support their ERP system, Insteel transitioned from using PA-RISC platforms to Dell PowerEdge servers which will save Insteel around $80,000 in hardware maintenance over the next four years. 

Additionally, after the organization finalized an important acquisition, Insteel chose to work with Dell for their transition. With Dell’s help, and with Insteel’s 24/7 production environment in mind, Insteel closed the acquisition on a Friday and had products shipping out of its new facilities’ ERP systems by Monday.   On day one, new employees from the acquisition were set up with Latitude E6510 laptops, complete with access to the Insteel network. 

Evident by these examples, Insteel truly values IT efficiency, and, in fact, the importance Insteel places on efficient technology solutions has helped the company become the largest U.S. manufacturer of steel wire reinforcing products. 

“We look for a technology provider who can pretty much bring the complete solution to the table all at one time, and Dell was the natural choice for the business. The simpler we can keep our environment, the more easily our small staff can deploy packages, do operating system upgrades and troubleshoot problems. IT management is simplified and we feel like that gives us a competitive edge.” – Mark Coleman, Manager of Systems and Database Administration, Insteel Wire Products. 

As complexity grows through globalization and customer demand rises for customized products, the need to simplify the manufacturing environment is becoming more and more important for manufacturers to maintain manageability and reliability. Insteel is just one of many manufacturing customers that utilize Dell and Dell Services to reach this desired level of simplicity. You can learn more about our manufacturing solutions at www.dell.com/manufacturing

What does agility mean to your company? How do you prioritize IT efficiency? Comment here and let us know.

About the Author: Bill Popp