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Everett J. Prescott, Inc.
The waterworks industry is unpredictable. When a severe storm takes out a water main, or a break leads to sewage spills flowing unchecked into a river, customers turn to Everett J. Prescott (EJP) of Gardiner, Maine, whose 24-hour on-call service department stands by ready to respond, day or night.
Then there are the normal demands of business. Whether it’s delivering pipe and fittings to meet aggressive construction schedules for a water tank manufacturer or pressure testing a water main, it’s all in a day’s work for EJP, the premier distributor of water, sewer and drain materials in the Northeast and Midwest.
“Service is our highest priority, and we continually increase the services available to meet our customers’ needs,” say Dan Willette, Director of Information Technology. “To respond quickly to any customer demand our business processes must be integrated across the company and with key partners, and suppliers. EJP customers know that we keep our promises. To do that our technology infrastructure has to be extremely reliable and easy to manage, [because] we bet our business on it!”
With 27 divisions across 10 states, it can be difficult for the three-person IT staff to keep track of individual operating systems and make upgrades that would keep responsiveness on the leading edge. Additionally, EJP was being challenged by growth issues. As a company that continually looks for new distribution areas, EJP was outgrowing its facilities and was planning to move to a larger office and distribution center. The time was ripe to introduce an IT infrastructure that could handle the load and grow with the business.
Norton Lamb & Company of Yarmouth, Maine, recommended a flexible and cost-effective solution that included virtualized server consolidation and “thin-client” technology to assure secure access to applications from a variety of computer devices, operating systems and interfaces. With the new system up and running, EJP now has a centralized point of systems management to satisfy current and future demands. The critical systems that keep EJP’s employees, vendors and customers running night and day are now more cost effective and easy to manage. More work is being done with fewer moving parts which not only saves money but has environmental benefits as well.
“The upfront investment has produced a ton of savings in time, energy and money,” reports Dan Willette. “Additional benefits include fast and easy communication between remote locations and the home office, as well as the ability to customize new applications to our customers’ requirements.”