Weir Strachan & Henshaw blows away defence IT costs

"It's easy to overlook the tasks that an organisation's IT team can take on in the course of the day on behalf of other employees," says Barnett. "Before we implemented CA's technology, we spent as much as an hour and a half on each desktop rolling out new software or program upgrades. Multiply this by the hundreds of PCs we have, and that's a lot of man-hours. Since moving to CA's Unicenter, we completed our latest software installation programme over the course of two evenings." But he makes the point that it's not just about time. Working with CA, he says, also keeps the costs of maintaining and supporting the IT under control – including handling the increasing diversity of IT, which has implications for skill sets and third party support contracts. And there are flexibility, security and service level implications. Indeed, the quickest return, he says, has been from remote control. "We can solve users' problems far more quickly, and still provide the personal touch, while also taking them through education and training and so on… We can also automate some processes: for example, if there's no Acrobat reader then the system can kick off remote deployment. It's all recorded and there's no manual input. ROI was almost from day one." As for CA's remote deployment tools, he says there are similar advantages. "They'll let you do a big bang major upgrade, rather than suffer weeks of roll-out interruption, because everything's already fully tested and standardised. For example, with a new version of CAD or Office you can be sure it's going to work. We're not wasting time looking for needles in haystacks." And that also goes for serious engineering development software used in a challenging environment. Weir Strachan & Henshaw focuses on the defence and nuclear markets world-wide, providing FEA, visualisation and simulation, so runs various CAD suites, including Unigraphics and Solid Edge, as well as PDM (product data management) in the form of UGS' Teamcenter. As Barnett points out: "We're always looking to create synergy between business processes and systems. I need to enable the business and be product-focused to achieve business excellence. And that means ensuring excellence with our CAD." Incidentally, it's also worth noting two more points. First, Barnett's assertion that tighter control over the organisation's IT is helping with the firm's drive towards ISO-IEC17799. But second, CA's desktop DNA management means WSH has been able to set up flexible working, with PC settings, data and preferences all transferable. That makes it relatively easy to manage the total cost of IT ownership and to maximise the value from investments in new systems, hardware and other technology assets.