David Papp

Based in Edmonton, Alberta, Argus Machine Company has made custom parts and pipeline threading in Canada for oil and gas fields since 1958. But in three buildings totaling 100,000 square feet, unreliable, piecemeal technology was increasingly frustrating some 100 employees.

Workers in its plants rely on software that instructs manufacturing and assembly machines, but frequent network outages forced them to upload commands manually, causing product delays. Staff in sales, marketing, accounting, and administration had a rough time accessing the corporate intranet and documents, as well as the printing, e-mail, and accounting systems.

Even tech companies need an IT overhaul from time to time. Case in point: Last year, a Canadian software developer (who preferred to remain nameless for the purposes of this story) called my team at Microtek to give its server room a badly needed upgrade. The six-person company, which develops a suite of subscription-based applications allowing small businesses from across a variety of vertical markets locate and and acquire specialty parts, was in desperate need of a new server to host the home-built CRM system it uses to manage roughly 100 client accounts.

The company's internal IT infrastructure are no longer with the organization, and virtually no documentation has been left behind to guide the current staff. Their server was running on unreliable aging hardware that was rapidly running out of disk space. To keep the business running smoothly, the developer needed an immediate upgrade to this CRM server, add more disk space, establish a backup option for Internet service, upgrade the network, assist with remote access for the owner who travels, and have updated documentation on their network. And of course, all of this had to be done on a cash-flow sensitive budget.