Fred Weber

Construction Firm Lowers IT Costs and Saves Users Time with Software Upgrade

Fred Weber, Inc. is one of the top 400 highway construction firms in the United States. The Missouri-based company of 1,200 employees wanted to continue its recent rapid growth without expanding IT spending. Fred Weber decided to deploy the Windows Vista™ operating system on the company’s 275 desktop computers to make its 11-person IT staff more efficient and give them more flexibility to respond to business requests. The pilot rollout has indicated that the Windows Vista software will reduce help-desk calls by 30 percent and software deployment by almost ten-fold, and save each worker as many as 40 hours annually through faster information location. Fred Weber will also benefit from enhanced network security—for instance, more resistance to viruses, spyware, and hacking—which should further boost worker productivity and lower IT costs.

 

Situation

Fred Weber, Inc. is a highway and heavy construction firm and one of the largest materials supply companies in St. Louis, Missouri, owning crushed-limestone quarries, asphalt plants, sand plants, and a landfill. It’s the largest contractor in the Midwestern United States and one of the top 400 contractors in the country. Started in 1928, Fred Weber today employs 1,200 people and has annual revenues of U.S.$300 million.

Fred Weber has paved its way to success for nearly 80 years by adhering to a few key business principles: belief in the power of planning, the value of a good day’s work, and the need to continually adapt business practices to better serve clients. The company has doubled its revenues in the past five years through acquisitions, careful management of its equipment, and smart use of technology. The company installed Global Positioning System technology on nearly all its rolling equipment to make sure drivers choose the most efficient routes and to transmit vehicle diagnostic information to headquarters for better equipment maintenance.

“If it’s getting old and costing us more money than it’s making, then it’s gone,” says Phil Hagemann, Chief Information Officer for Fred Weber. “The alternative to not keeping up your equipment is that you spend more time taking care of it, maintenance costs rise, and the bottom line suffers.”

The same principle applies to use of information technology at Fred Weber. The company prides itself on staying current with technology and using it to facilitate growth. Fred Weber was an early adopter of computers in the 1970s and 1980s, understanding that computers would allow staff to be more productive, efficient, and accurate. Seven years ago, Fred Weber created a single network with centralized file server computers and centralized data backup. The company continues to scan the horizon for innovations that will further enhance productivity, competitiveness, customer service, and the bottom line.

Thanks to regular technology infusions that increase efficiency, the IT staff size has held steady at 11 people, even in the face of the last five years’ terrific growth and a rising workload. The staff currently supports 275 desktop computers and more than 100 server computers. However, as the number of desktops has grown, the IT staff found itself spending too much time on desktop issues, from installing new systems to troubleshooting minor problems to updating software.

“We would spend a couple of hours setting up a new machine, and then need additional time for follow-up work once a new employee had started work,” Hagemann says. “Because we had a mix of operating system versions and applications, we didn’t really have a standard deployment process, and this slowed things down.”

In addition to having a hard time keeping up with new-system deployment, the IT staff continued to be challenged with keeping its growing fleet of desktop computers up-to-date with the latest applications and virus-scanning software and keeping up with new business requests. “Our users continue to find new applications that will give the business a competitive advantage, and we have to ensure both that new applications won’t break existing applications, and that users are well supported on current applications,” says Cullen Verbarg, Director of IT Operations.

Plus, with the move to centralized file shares, users often had trouble finding information that used to be sitting on their personal hard disk drives. They would lose valuable time every day hunting for information, because they couldn’t remember the file name or location.

Solution

In keeping with Fred Weber’s culture of achieving peak business results by maintaining current technology, the IT staff was eager to participate in the Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Technology Adoption Program (TAP). “Windows Vista was a natural progression for us,” Hagemann says. “Because we’ve regularly upgraded our Microsoft operating systems and programs, our network has become more reliable and available, and our workers steadily more productive.”

With users better able to fix their own problems, and Windows Vista enforcing application permissions, we expect a 30 percent reduction in help-desk calls. Phil Hagemann Chief Information Officer, Fred Weber

After a successful nine-month trial with the Windows Vista operating system running on five desktop computers, Fred Weber decided to roll out the new operating system to all 275 desktops. “Windows Vista solves a number of problems for us,” Verbarg says. “It gives our IT staff some very effective desktop deployment and management capabilities that will make our lives much easier. And it gives our users desktop search capability and an easier environment to work in, which makes them more effective and self-sufficient. Windows Vista is really an entire suite of solutions.”

The IT staff particularly likes the Windows Vista imaging improvements, which will enable them to maintain a single desktop image for all 275 systems. “Windows Vista provides a graphical imaging tool [Windows® System Image Manager] that makes it easy to install drivers and network cards without having to write setup files,” says Chris Oestereich, Network Engineer on the Fred Weber IT staff. The Windows Imaging (WIM) file format used by Windows Vista is hardware-agnostic, enabling organizations to maintain only a single image for multiple hardware configurations. WIM can also store multiple images within a single image file, making image management easier and saving disk space by storing only a single copy of each file. Maintaining WIM images is easy, because drivers, updates, and other Windows components can be added and removed offline without starting the operating system image, saving hours of work for every update.

In addition, new deployment technologies and guidance such as the Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) will enable the staff to deploy applications faster and more cost-effectively. “The BDD tools deliver faster desktop rollouts. We can build a single image incorporating all needed applications and security software, rather than rolling out things separately. This will save time for us and our users,” Oestereich says.

The Fred Weber IT staff is also appreciative of the security enhancements in Windows Vista, which give them more granular control over desktop rights. “Using Windows User Account Control, we can give users access to software that they’re authorized to use while locking them out of applications that they are not authorized for,” Hagemann says. “The Windows firewall allows us to block outgoing as well as incoming ports, which enhances security quite a bit. Also, spyware detection is built into the operating system, which means our desktops are more secure and eliminates another application we have to buy, install, and maintain on the desktop.”

IT staff and users alike will benefit from the Windows Vista integrated search capability, the new Windows Aero™ interface, and the customizable sidebar, which, together, provide an experience that helps make users more efficient and productive. “Windows Vista Instant Search eliminates hunting and pecking through menus,” Hagemann says. “Users love being able to search the network as well as their own files, rather than recreating information or having multiple versions of documents floating around the network.”

Benefits

By standardizing on the Windows Vista operating system, Fred Weber foresees a 30 percent reduction in help-desk calls and more time for the IT staff to help users in achieving business objectives. The new software will also enhance desktop security and make users more productive.

Thirty Percent Reduction in Help-Desk Calls
Windows User Account Control in Windows Vista will help reduce support calls related to application installation permissions, and the simpler interface will allow users to troubleshoot many of their own problems without calling the IT staff.

“With users better able to fix their own problems, and Windows Vista enforcing application permissions, we expect a 30 percent reduction in help-desk calls,” Hagemann says. “That will free up 1,000 hours per month, which my staff can spend helping users get the most out of our software investments and implementing new initiatives.”

Near Ten-Fold Deployment Savings
Windows Vista deployment efficiencies will streamline the rollout of new computers and the repurposing of existing machines. “It currently takes us about four hours to image a PC,” Hagemann says. “We anticipate reducing that to one or two hours per PC. This will reduce deployment costs from U.S.$300 to as little as $35 per computer.”
 
Fred Weber is also looking forward to running more applications as virtual applications, using Windows Vista and Microsoft SoftGrid® Application Virtualization software. “We now have the opportunity to deploy virtualized applications, which will allow us to more quickly and easily roll out new applications,” Hagemann says. “For example, we will be able to roll out Microsoft Office Professional 2007 as a virtual application, eliminating the compatibility issues we’ve had in the past. Virtualization also allows us to deploy new applications while keeping the old ones on the desktop, which gives users the ability to play with the new applications while returning to the old if they want to.

“Windows Vista will improve our bottom line by eliminating activities that don’t add value,” Hagemann continues. “Unfortunately, IT can be viewed as overhead, and whatever we can do to minimize costs and add value directly affects the bottom line. It’s all about getting things done better, faster, and cheaper. When we can concentrate our time on things that add value, then we’ve done a better job.”

Improved IT Staff Effectiveness
Increased IT staff efficiency is important to Fred Weber, because while the company is growing, the IT staff is not. “With Windows Vista, we have the tools that allow us to easily deploy the operating system, and deploy, fix, and troubleshoot applications. [Windows] Vista not only allows me to do today’s work better, but also to do more with the same staff,” Verbarg says.

Adds Hagemann, “The less time we spend deploying and managing computers, the more time we can spend with users learning about their business problems, researching new applications, and generally moving the business forward.”

In the same vein, the ability to deploy new applications faster, with fewer compatibility problems, gives the company more agility in responding to customer and market needs, to “turn on a dime,” as Verbarg says. “Windows Vista improves our ability to deliver tools that aren’t even available yet—tools that will make our users more efficient, our business more competitive, and our customers very satisfied with their cost savings. Windows Vista really gives us a whole basket of value.”

Spam, hackers, you name it: many elements threaten our environment every day… Windows Vista helps us spend less time fighting those battles. Cullen Verbarg Director of IT Operations, Fred Weber

User-Friendly Desktop Security
Verbarg also sees benefit from the new operating system’s security enhancements. “Windows Vista is an application that was designed with security in mind. Microsoft has worked hard to offer users the functionality they need without sacrificing security,” he says. “Spam, hackers, you name it: many elements threaten our environment every day. It takes a lot of effort on our part to monitor the network. Windows Vista helps us spend less time fighting those battles.”

Hagemann adds, “There are some security tools that are very good at closing security breaches, but they slow users down. Windows Vista is a user-friendly security tool that allows users to easily run their applications, and allows the IT department to control which applications are available.”

Up to 40 Hours Per-User Annual Timesavings
Additional user timesavings come from the Windows Vista search capability and user interface improvements. “The Windows Vista search capability is phenomenal, and the new Windows Aero interface lends a nice, contemporary touch to the whole experience,” Hagemann says. “I anticipate the timesavings from improved user productivity to be just incredible. If each of our 275 users saves 10 minutes per day through the use of Windows Vista, we’ll open up an additional 40 hours of work time per year, per user, worth more than $100,000 annually in labor costs. That’s significant for a company of our size.”

Fred Weber users can intuitively find information that they’ve struggled to locate in the past. “Windows Vista search will allow our users to spend less time looking for information and more time focused on the business,” Hagemann says. “With information coming in and changing as fast as it does, being able to search and find accurate information has a huge impact.”

“We’ve found that our users develop into their own community of experts, and Windows Vista will accelerate this trend,” adds Verbarg. “The ability to find information and solve their own problems using Windows Vista Help tools will enable users to fix their problems faster than they could in the past.”

In closing, Hagemann says, “We want to deliver solutions correctly the first time and minimize downtime. That means delivering a quality solution that’s well tested and easy to use. By taking advantage of the tools that Windows Vista brings to the table, we’ll be able to accomplish more with fewer resources, spend more time on new projects, reduce IT costs, and reduce the learning curve for users. Choosing Windows Vista is a no-brainer.”

Windows Vista
Windows Vista can help your organization use information technology to gain a competitive advantage in today’s new world of work. Your people will be able to find and use information more effectively. You will be able to support your mobile work force with better access to shared data and collaboration tools. And your IT staff will have better tools and technologies to enhance corporate IT security, data protection, and more efficient deployment and management.

For more information about Windows Vista, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsvista 

 

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about Fred Weber products and services, call (314) 344-0070 or visit the Web site at:
www.fredweberinc.com