Sauder Woodworking Streamlines IT Tasks and Improves Mobility with Enterasys

ANDOVER, Mass., March 9, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Enterasys Networks, a Siemens Enterprise Communications Company, today announced that Sauder Woodworking Co. has deployed Enterasys solutions to update the campus network and increase mobility and IT responsiveness, while streamlining and automating IT practices. The new infrastructure includes Enterasys S-Series modular switches, Enterasys Wireless and Enterasys Network Management Suite (NMS) management software to centrally manage and monitor the network, providing improved visibility and control.

These updates are part of Sauder Woodworking's lean business strategy, an initiative to simplify, reduce costs and avoid redundancies in business processes and equipment. The company decided to leverage its long-term partnership with Enterasys to deploy wireless access and monitoring, allowing them to meet budget requirements and establish security policies over 300+ access points and 2,500 devices. "In addition to the security that comes with authenticating users with Enterasys Wireless, we've saved the money we would have spent re-cabling our facilities since we can now move devices without rewiring," said Jan Arvay, IS Director at Sauder Woodworking. "Furthermore, the automated management capabilities of the Enterasys solution have resulted in significant time savings and improved productivity."

With only one dedicated network engineer for Sauder Woodworking's five million square feet of manufacturing and distribution space, streamlining processes was not only important to the company's lean strategy, but it was imperative to the success of the IT initiatives at Sauder Woodworking. If there is a network issue, NMS automatically sends proactive alerts, improving time to resolution and allowing the IT department to respond to issues before they become problems.

"With some vendors, you can feel like a small fish in a big pond. By partnering with Enterasys, we get the intangible benefit of better service, and the tangible benefit of better pricing," said Charlie Altherr, Lead Network Engineer at Sauder Woodworking. This close partnership in turn improves the level of service to the users on Sauder Woodworking's network. Sauder Woodworking recently extended that partnership to Siemens Enterprise Communications, choosing OpenScape Voice for standards-based IP telephony across the enterprise, which interoperates seamlessly with the Enterasys infrastructure.  This solution will be deployed at Sauder Woodworking operating units throughout the United States.

"The responsiveness we have to display in our business has changed over the past few years. The NMS capabilities help us maintain a good reputation with our users," said Altherr. "From a management standpoint, integration is crucial. With NMS I can schedule automated tasks every morning, forgoing the manual process that before would either take too long or didn't get done at all. Just the day to day capabilities make it worth the price of admission."

About Enterasys Networks and Siemens Enterprise Communications

Siemens Enterprise Communications is a premier provider of end-to-end enterprise communications, including voice, network infrastructure and security solutions that use open, standards-based unified communications and business applications for a seamless collaboration experience. This award-winning "Open Communications" approach enables organizations to improve productivity and reduce costs through easy-to-deploy solutions that work within existing IT environments, delivering operational efficiencies. It is the foundation for the company's OpenPath® commitment that enables customers to mitigate risk and cost-effectively adopt unified communications. Jointly owned by The Gores Group and Siemens AG, Siemens Enterprise Communications includes Cycos and Enterasys Networks. For more information about Siemens Enterprise Communications or Enterasys please visit www.siemens-enterprise.com or www.enterasys.com.

SOURCE Enterasys Networks