Altigen Success Story: Hamon
Location: Somerville, NJ
Type of Business: Air & Water Technologies
The First Challenge: (needed a strong, solid telephone system)Approximately three years ago, Hamon expanded their operations with the acquisition of 3 worldwide activities of Air & Water Technologies (USA). Included in this expansion was the purchase of an old US steel factory just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Hamon realized quickly that the newly purchased steel factory, still using some very old rotary phones, was in desperate need of a modern communication system. However, they were challenged to find a telephone system solution that could accommodate the unique operational parameters in which employees at a steel factory would work.
Although there were over 175 individuals employed at the new Hamon facility only 60 individuals were in positions that required phone sets at the desktop. Therefore, Hamon looked to ACS to find a cost effective telephony solution that would not only provide the everyday users with superior traditional telephone system functionality, but that could also provide the other factory workers with a flexible communication solution that would suit their unique requirements. After evaluating all the telephony challenges set before Hamon, ACS outlined the benefits of a converged PBX and recommended an AltiGen solution to meet their communication requirements. Hamon recognized benefits of the AltiGen solution and chose to install their first stand-alone AltiServ system at this Pittsburgh factory in 1999.
Purchasing an AltiGen solution from ACS for this Pittsburgh location was Hamon’s introduction into an AltiGen converged communication environment. Not only did AltiGen deliver on their initial objectives of being cost effective and feature rich, the AltiGen solution also offered an excellent operator attendant console to ensure that every office or warehouse worker would efficiently receive their calls. Additionally, the AltiGen solution was so easy to use that it did not take long for Hamon’s employees to learn and benefit from using AltiGen’s powerful set of phone features.
The Second Challenge: (the Legacy Phone system)
Hamon’s headquarters are located in Somerville, New Jersey. With the rapid expansion of Hamon, the organization was quickly running out of office space at the Somerville location. They had simply run out of room to accommodate any additional employees at Hamon’s headquarter facility. Hamon had an opportunity to expand their operations into a building just across the street that was available for purchase. However, while this building was geographically convenient, Hamon was challenged to find a telephone solution that could integrate with the traditional Lucent legacy switch already installed at their main headquarters.
Since Hamon was already using a Lucent telephone switch, naturally Hamon went to them first to try to solve this new communications challenge. The best solution that Lucent could offer Hamon was their “Extender” product. Each “Extender” could offer an additional 24 extensions for the facility across the street, at a cost of $20,000 each. Looking at their situation, however, Hamon knew they would first need approximately 60 additional extensions in their new facility. Secondly, with the Lucent technology Hamon would have to install many additional telephone lines for fax and modem support. This was shaping up to be a very costly and limited solution. The costs were staggering.
Hamon needed to evaluate other options and turned again to Affiliated Computer Services with the challenge of cost effectively solving the telephony requirements at their corporate offices. Hamon and ACS still needed to find a solution that would integrate with Hamon’s main Lucent switch. ACS again had an opportunity to show how Hamon’s corporate office could also benefit from the converged communications and IP PBX functionality offered with the AltiGen solution. After ACS performed a complete integration evaluation, the choice for Hamon was simple. A new AltiGen system would be installed to support the corporate expansion and include an IP gateway solution that interfaces directly with Hamon’s Lucent Definity legacy switch.
Since Hamon was already so heavily invested in their Lucent switch at the corporate office, the AltiGen IP gateway implementation provided Hamon a perfect solution to integrate their existing Lucent equipment to the new AltiGen solution that would be installed at their adjunct headquarter office across the street. AltiGen’s support of telephony standards would allow the AltiGen gateway solution to connect directly with the Lucent switch and simply tie the two headquarters offices together with T1 tie lines. The challenges created by needing to expand into the new facility were met at a fraction of the Lucent Expander cost. Using the AltiGen solution Hamon could now provide telephones, voice mail, modem lines, fax lines, and extension-to-extension dialing between the AltiGen and Lucent systems. Additionally, Hamon now could cost effectively expand far beyond the 60 extensions needed initially at the new facility.
Solution: (AltiGen Revolutionizes Hamon’s Communications)
Having realized extraordinary benefits from an AltiGen solution in two very challenging environments, when Hamon needed a communication solution for the Kansas office in mid 2001 they again worked with their Authorized AltiGen Reseller, Affiliated Computer Services, to install their third AltiGen telephone system. Now that Hamon had AltiGen already installed in their Pittsburgh and Kansas facilities, and with AltiGen already implemented as a gateway solution at their corporate office integrated to their Lucent legacy system, AltiGen offered Hamon the ability to begin networking all their locations together with AltiGen’s superior VoIP technology. Additionally, the AltiGen solution offered IP extension capabilities for those smaller Hamon warehouse facilities that did not require the use of a full telephone system. Those facilities are now full IP extensions off the main AltiGen gateway and can seamlessly call extension to extension to any other Hamon office location via Voice over IP.
“By implementing AltiGen, Hamon saves over $8,000 a month just in interoffice calls. Says Hamon’s CFO, Jim Violette. “But the benefits go far beyond that. We are able to unify the company. We just pick up the phone and dial anybody’s 4-digit extension. It’s that easy, and there are no long distance charges.”