Overview
Douglas Machine, Inc. is an employee-owned manufacturer of custom, semi-custom, and standard integrated packaging equipment. Founded in 1964 and headquartered in Alexandria, Minnesota, the company serves customers around the world with a team of 575 employees.
When it was time to retire an aging phone system, Douglas Machine didn't just want a replacement. They wanted a platform built for how their business actually operates — and a partner who could deliver it without disruption.
The Challenge
A few years back, Douglas Machine found itself at a crossroads. Its aging phone system was due for a technology refresh — something the company does periodically with all its systems to assure it remains a market leader in its industry — while business needs demanded new capabilities that hadn’t even been dreamed of when the old phone system was installed.
Al Meyers, director of information systems at Douglas Machine, states:
"We really wanted to move from traditional copper to a VoIP system. The nature of our business drives a lot of adds, moves, and changes. We knew that a VoIP platform would help us react to those changes much faster and at a lower cost.”
Among other capabilities, Meyers says the company wanted to add:
- The ability to track placed and missed calls
- Caller ID
-
The foundations to eventually move to unifiied communications
After further investigation, Douglas Machine realized a move to VoIP would entail more than installing one phone system and turning off the other.
“In order to accommodate the higher bandwidth required by VoIP we would have to make a number of infrastructure upgrades,” Meyers says. “We also wanted to add Power over Ethernet (PoE), and increase the capacity of our wireless network to provide customers and vendors access to the outside when they’re on-premises.”
The Solution
Because Douglas Machine had already partnered with Marco in other areas, the work could move forward quickly.
Marco proposed a solution incorporating:
- Cisco Small Business Voice System
- Unified Communications Manager
- Unified Messaging
- Unified Presence
- Unified Contact Center Express.
- Upgrading the existing wireless network to support the system
- Replacing network gear with Cisco PoE
Douglas Machine also deployed roughly 450 new Cisco phones, of which 25% were new Wi-Fi models.
Results
User adoption of the new phone system went quickly and smoothly thanks to good planning.
"We had a two-week training period prior to the go-live date," says Meyers. "During that time our employees had two phones on their desk. They used the new Cisco phones for internal calls with four digit dialing, while continuing to use the old phones for outside calls. By the time we did the cutover everyone was comfortable with the new phones to the point where there weren't any real major issues or concerns."
Quick Adoption
Douglas Machine's employees have since embraced the new phone system. Among the favorite capabilities is call history — being able to see missed, received, and placed calls just as they have become accustomed to on their mobile phones.
Having a "do not disturb" button as well as the ability to place a call on hold to take a second call are also much appreciated. Traveling employees are finding the soft phone very useful.
"Before, when someone was working off-site, callers would have to leave voicemail messages," Meyers says. "When you do as much custom work as we do, that's very inefficient. With the soft phone, users can log in through our virtual private network (VPN), then place and answer calls through their PCs, as though they were in the office. It's helped us become even more responsive and efficient while significantly reducing our long distance phone costs."
Future plans call for Douglas Machine to implement full Cisco Unified Communications. They also intend to implement teleconferencing, which Meyers says is another reason the company went with Cisco. When it happens, Marco will be right there with them.
What Douglas Machine's Experience Shows
Finding the right partner makes a huge difference.
Sometimes one major upgrade requires another. Having a partner that brings comprehensive expertise can keep more complex projects moving forward smoothly.
Also, a technology refresh of this scale — touching phones, network infrastructure, and wireless across a 575-person operation — only goes smoothly when the planning is meticulous.
For Douglas Machine, the two-week parallel training period wasn't an afterthought. It was the reason cutover day was a non-event.
The move to VoIP also opened doors that the old system couldn't. Remote employees went from playing phone tag to working as if they never left the office. Call visibility that employees had come to expect on their mobile phones finally existed at their desks. And a roadmap toward full unified communications was now within reach.
Mayers concludes, "Marco has the VoIP expertise to meet and exceed expectations. We are happy with the solution we chose and Marco's performance. This is one of the biggest technology projects we've had in the last five or six years, and it was the smoothest implementation we've had. That says a lot about their capabilities."
If your phone system is overdue for a refresh — or you're not sure what a modern VoIP platform could do for your business — our phone specialists can help you figure out where to start.
