Applicable upgrades UYT Limited to greater productivity and control

UYT Limited is an automotive component manufacturing facility based in Coventry in the West Midlands. Some 600 employees work a plant which is operational 24 x 7 producing body-in-white components, i.e. the unpainted parts for Honda’s Civic and CRV ranges.

Originally established in 1996 as a joint venture between Unipart and the Japanese company, Yachiyo, Honda acquired a shareholding and became UYT’s exclusive customer.

Alongside the expansion of Honda’s operations in the UK from 2001, UYT itself grew dramatically from 100 to 600 staff. The introduction of the hugely popular Honda Civic and CRV models saw volumes of work for UYT significantly increase again in 2005 and 2006 to meet the demands of its customer. The company’s IT and networking systems also faced increasing demands. Chris Foster, IT Network & Security Manager has responsibility for all of UYT's telephony, business systems and networks as well the server infrastructure. He explains, “When the existing technology started to creak at the seams we knew that we had to upgrade the servers and, importantly, the operating system.” For any company this can be a daunting challenge. Chris and his team of four recognised that there would be a two week window of opportunity in which to carry out this work.

This is when the plant matches the rest of the automotive industry and effectively shuts down during the holiday period. Acknowledging the importance of bringing in seasoned professionals to undertake the upgrades, UYT engaged Applicable Limited, a business critical managed service provider that had previously undertaken an IBM Lotus Notes Healthcheck for them.

The project incorporated a number of significant upgrades; including upgrading to IBM Lotus Domino Release 7 and installing this on new hardware, as well as an upgrade to Windows 2003. Upgrading Windows Active Directory was also required along with the introduction of new hardware and the deployment of the old hardware elsewhere in the company. According to Chris Foster, “Applicable offered expertise in all the core areas, the operating environments and data migration, and also, importantly, in project management.” Working with Chris and his team, Applicable’s consultants were able to create a project plan to take into account the two-week shut down when relatively few staff would be making demands of the system.

Very few projects run exactly according to the original project plan, but Applicable was again able to show its experience and expertise. As Chris Foster explains, “The Applicable consultants worked their way through the action plan really professionally. But more than this, they were flexible enough to adapt things when they came across a deviation that they knew would fit our business better. We felt like they were doing this to truly meet our needs, not their own needs.” He adds, “Of course, you can only do that if you have considerable knowledge and expertise in what you’re doing, and take the time to understand the customer’s business.”

Applicable’s consultants had to be flexible and adaptable to be able to move the huge amounts of data onto the new HP hardware – which was unfortunately delayed in reaching UYT. This required some contingency planning to ensure that not only was the initial data capture imported correctly, but also that no data, entered between the initial download and the go-live on the new platform, was lost. The challenge was met by Applicable by writing a script that would effectively transfer all the data, old and new, onto the new server.

For Chris Foster and his team at UYT one measure of success has been the lack of reaction from his colleagues. He explains, “Generally if people from within the business contact me it’s because there is something wrong. After the migration there was such a smooth transition that people didn’t notice anything. They may have spotted faster performance or a smoother login thanks to the script adjustments that Applicable made. I know the systems have been improved and brought in line with what we need to meet increased demand from management and Honda. And I’m delighted to have worked with Applicable on this.”

The relationship is moving from strength to strength as UYT is looking to engage Applicable to monitor its servers and ensure that performance levels are maintained. The final word goes to Chris Foster, “It’s great to know that there are experts you can call on. To have Applicable’s level of knowledge and expertise on your side whenever you need them – that’s what I like!”