CSS
Laboratories Provides Over a Decade of Server Design and
Integration for Cheese Manufacture and Distributor
By
Roger Nadow, Sales Manager, CSS Laboratories
For
more than 15 years, CSS Laboratories has worked hand-in-hand
with a major cheese-making company to help the food
distributor create an efficient and cost-effective
infrastructure that continues to grow with the business as
it steadily gains customers, increases capacity and
continues to be the largest such manufacturer in the cheese
industry.
GROWING
WITH THE CUSTOMER
CSS
Laboratories is a privately held global
manufacturer and supplier of desktop and server solutions,
rackmount computers, custom design and development services,
and integration services.
In
1997, CSS Laboratories began a relationship with a
northwestern cheese manufacturing and distribution company
by creating a two-server system that was durable enough to
run the entire company – from manufacturing to accounting
– for 5 years. So dependable was the system that the
company’s need for an upgrade didn’t occur until the
introduction of the Internet “Super Highway” in the
late-’90s. The manufacturer again called upon CSS
Laboratories to create three customized 410 Dual Xeon
servers to accommodate the company’s desire to enter the
world of e-commerce.
In
2001, the manufacturer’s client base drastically expanded
when they took on a leading warehouse retail chain, and
their need for increased capacity, both in-house and online,
was met with yet another custom-built Xeon server by CSS
Laboratories.
With
the addition of these new servers, not only was the company
able to boost their customer service and increase sales
online, they were also able to enhance the speed and
efficiency of their operations. CSS updated the two 1997
servers, and they were reassigned to the factory floor to
manage production operations, such as packaging and
labeling. These original servers, upgraded with Pentium IV
motherboards, continue to operate 24-7 with horsepower
available for future upgrades.
In
2004, CSS Laboratories created a Citrix server designed to
cater to the company’s expansion of inventory control,
Web-based order processing and other manufacturing needs.
With the high reliability, easy maintenance and flexible
upgrades of the 4- to 20- slot passive backplanes CSS
Laboratories provides in its custom-built hardware, the new
server’s 3.6 GHz Dual Xeon capabilities also include RAID
backup as well as a combination of hard-wire and wireless
peripheral data control.
When
the cheese manufacturer decided to expand these server
capabilities, they found that the specifications they had in
mind were not available from the usual, large-volume
suppliers, who proffered a “take it or leave it”
approach to sales of their off-the-shelf servers. By working
with CSS Laboratories, the cheese company found that a
customized solution is not prohibitively expensive, and the
individualized attention results in very specific solutions
to the needs of the company. CSS Laboratories’ dexterity
was proven both by its ability to engineer quality servers
to the specifications particular to the cheese
manufacturer’s needs and accommodate future growth without
the investment in entirely new equipment.
QUALITY
PERFORMANCE AND SERVICE
The
depth of CSS Laboratories testing standards – from
interior interface to environmental stress testing – is
reflected in the product’s low industry failure rate of
six to eight percent. The industry average is 36 to 37
percent. In addition to the higher than usual industry mean
time between failures, this comprehensive quality control
has resulted in longer product life cycles. To date, there
have been no defects in the last five servers provided by
CSS Laboratories. The original towers, which are now on the
factory floor, continue to operate around the clock.
Because
CSS Laboratories is a small, agile company, its staff of
seasoned experts has the time, capability and resources to
focus on the specific needs of the manufacturer. This
includes both the small details (including the need to
create cooling fans for chassis that far exceed the
abilities of those available on the regular market) and an
intimate understanding of the company’s business model and
plans for profitable growth.
SERVING
FUTURE GROWTH
By
reconfiguring their existing hardware, and spending time
understanding the potential future needs of a successful,
continuously expanding company, CSS Laboratories provides
their client with a cost-effective, dependable computing
network that will serve the company well into the future.
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