MaaS360.com > Case Study
Pittsburgh Glass Works
PGW Finds Mobility Improves Productivity, and Fiberlink Reduces the
Costs of Mobility
PGW
Pittsburgh Glass Works
CHALLENGE
Ensure simple, reliable connectivity for
500 mobile and remote workers across
North America, control the costs of
supporting mobility and find a single
vendor for all their remote connectivity
needs.
SOLUTION
Fiberlink’s Extend360 Agent to simplify
connectivity, manage SSL VPN services
to protect data, and Fiberlink’s MaaS360
management and reporting application to
reduce management costs and provide
detailed reports to auditors.
RESULTS
Productivity increases of over 15 hours
per week for mobile workers, lower
administrative and networking costs,
and a “one-stop shop” for a myriad of
connectivity and security needs.
Pittsburgh Glass Works (PGW) finds that
mobility is a key factor in productivity
growth. About 500 of the company ’s
employees work on the road, at home, or in
small remote offices. Mobility and flexibility
allow these employees to work at the time
and place of their choosing, and simply to
get more done outside of the traditional
8:00-5:00 office hours.
But PGW is a diverse and geographically
distributed company, in a highly competitive
industry, subject to a wide range of
security and compliance regulations. Using
several products and vendors to support
mobility and mobile security would have
been prohibitively difficult and expensive.
By using Fiberlink’s MaaS (Mobility as a
Service) Platform, PGW makes it easy for
employees to work anywhere, anytime,
while reducing the cost of supporting
mobile work and passing compliance audits.
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“
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Pittsburgh Glass Works
Fiberlink’s Professional
Services staff is very
diligent; they get the
details to meet the
needs of their client.
The Challenge
“Automotive glass” may sound like a simple business, but Pittsburgh Glass Works manages
a diverse and complicated set of operations. It manufactures high-quality windshields and
windows for automobile manufacturers, makes replacement windows for repair shops,
blends chemicals to produce a rain repellent glass treatment, provides same-day and
overnight auto glass delivery to over 27,000 customers, manages more than 3 million
claims annually for insurance companies, and runs an e-commerce web site that connects
glass retailers, installation professionals and consumers.
And add geographic dispersion to business diversity. PGW has nine primary manufacturing plants in five states and one Canadian province,
nine additional parts assembly plants, two insurance claims management call centers, and 128 distribution branches across North America.
In fact, mobile work is integral to PGW’s operations. Approximately 500 of the company’s 4,400 employees use computers at home, on
the road, at customer and retailer locations, or in small branch offices. Mobile and remote workers are represented across most business
functions, including sales, distribution, engineering, process control, human resources and information technology. This diversity and
dispersion place considerable demands on PGW’s IT staff. Not only do they need to support mobile and remote workers across the United
States and Canada, they need to facilitate a wide range of connectivity methods, including Wi-Fi, 3G data cards, home and local office
wireless and broadband networking, and dial-up.
Further, PGW must comply with a host of regulatory requirements, including SOX, PCI and ISO standards, because its operations
encompass manufacturing, chemical processing, interstate distribution, and the handling of insurance and banking information.
Some companies might try to address these diverse requirements by using tools from multiple vendors to handle different types of remote
connectivity, endpoint security, laptop management and compliance reporting. But PGW recognized that such a fragmented approach
would be fatally inefficient and prohibitively expensive. Instead they determined that only a unified solution for mobile connectivity and
management would allow them to increase productivity while reducing costs.
The Solution
Pittsburgh Glass Works decided to use Fiberlink as a “one- stop shop” for connectivity and endpoint management services for mobile and
remote workers.
Fiberlink’s Extend360 Agent allows PGW’s mobile and remote workers to utilize one sign-on procedure for all types of remote connectivity
- Wi-Fi, 3G cellular networks, dial-up connections, home networks, and VPN connections from branch offices. The use of a single, intuitive
interface increases the productivity and satisfaction of mobile workers. It also reduces calls to the help desk, and eliminates the need to
deploy and support multiple clients for different connection methods.
The Extend360 Agent also helps protect mobile computers and the data they carry by monitoring the laptops and remote PCs to ensure
that operating system patches are applied and that security applications like personal firewalls and anti- virus packages are in place. PGW
uses Fiberlink’s SSL VPN management services to provide secure connections between branch offices and headquarters. This virtual private
network service not only prevents data transmissions from being intercepted by hackers, it also allows PGW to control costs by using
inexpensive DSL and wireless connections in place of expensive T1 circuits.
PGW employs Fiberlink’s MaaS360 hosted management and reporting application to keep track of software levels and the compliance status
of laptops and remote PCs. PGW has found the reporting capabilities of MaaS360 to be especially valuable during audits, because it provides
information immediately that otherwise might take weeks to collect.
Recognizing today’s challenging economic environment, PGW has taken advantage of Fiberlink’s flexible pricing. A “SaaS- type” licensing
model allowed PGW to avoid up-front capital costs and instead to spread subscription fees over three years.
MaaS360.com > Case Study
Pittsburgh Glass Works
The Results
According to Jake Mahoney, Director of IT at Korry, the
Pittsburgh Glass Works relies on a mobile and distributed
workforce, and believes that Fiberlink’s intuitive connectivity
features have led to substantial productivity improvements.
In fact, PGW estimates that giving its employees the ability to
work at any location and on nights and weekends increases
the number of hours they work by at least 15 hours weekly.
PGW also calculates that it has achieved significant costs
savings through Fiberlink’s services, including lower help
desk costs, decreased remote connectivity costs, reduced
software administration costs, and the use of inexpensive
DSL connections in place of expensive T1 circuits. PGW is
much more confident it has the right security measures in
place for remote PCs, including endpoint management and
VPN connections. Security and compliance reports have also
reduced the effort needed to pass security audits.
Finally, PGW has succeeded in its goal of finding a “one-stop
shop” and a supportive vendor to help manage all types of
mobile connectivity and security.
For More Information
To learn more about our technology and services visit www.maas360.com.
1787 Sentry Parkway West, Building 18, Suite 200 | Blue Bell, PA 19422
Phone 215.664.1600 | Fax 215.664.1601 | sales@fiberlink.com
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