News

The SAS Group facilitates Moss’s swift European expansion

New WAN links three new offices to the company’s 15 existing sites

London, 23 May 2007 - The SAS Group, an international provider of IP-based network and communication infrastructure services, today announced it has designed and implemented a wide area network (WAN) for plastics manufacturer Moss Plastic Parts. The new infrastructure links three new offices in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic to the company’s existing communications network across fifteen sites throughout Europe, including its central headquarters in the UK. The expanded network has enabled the company’s rapid expansion into emerging European markets and has streamlined communications to improve business efficiency.

Moss manufactures and distributes protection and finishing plastic parts, including hinges, fastenings and seals, for a wide range of industries throughout Europe and is continually innovating to extend and develop its product portfolio. It currently has more than 10,000 standard lines, all available from stock for same day dispatch. As the company prides itself on its ability to meet challenging delivery requirements on all these lines throughout Europe, it is vital to have a presence in several European countries. Equally, it is crucial to ensure that all sales and distribution centres can communicate and access up-to-date stock and delivery information in real time.

Prior to Moss’s expansion into Eastern Europe, the SAS Group had completed the design and installation of a WAN connecting all of the existing sites. It therefore made business sense for Moss to choose the SAS Group to extend its network. A further consideration was that Moss had a limited number of IT staff; just four IT professionals across the entire company. It therefore needed a partner it could trust to not only complete the installations in each country, taking into account each individual set of requirements, but also to provide ongoing expertise to ensure the smooth running of its WAN network. With the installation of a BT MPLS WAN to connect the new offices in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, the SAS Group has now linked all of the company’s eighteen European sites and continues to provide ongoing 24/7 support across all locations.

“Linking the three new offices into the company network was, and will continue to be, vital to our operating efficiency – and to our continued growth,” said Roger Mall, IT project manager at Moss Plastic Parts. “With only a small IT team in the UK, it simply would not have been feasible to get the sites up and running so quickly and easily without the help of a partner we could trust. The SAS Group was, without doubt, the natural choice because of our longstanding relationship.”

Each site infrastructure deployment had to be completed within one month, and because of this strict timeframe, the SAS Group faced the further challenge of having to implement the network, initially, using the secondary circuit, a public Cisco internet VPN – which is now being used for failover – before switching to a BT MPLS private circuit. To maximise resilience, the SAS Group added separate routers on the MPLS and ISDN circuits to ensure smooth running in the event of circuit or internal hardware device failure. To further enhance this resilience, the SAS Group is also providing proactive monitoring of the WANs in case of failure or loss of performance.

“We’re proud to have risen to the challenge of completing this installation in near record time to help Moss expand its infrastructure across three new sites,” said Charles Davis, CEO of the SAS Group. “The benefits of streamlining communications across disparate locations cannot be underestimated. By working with an integrator like the SAS Group, companies can be assured of expertise, local knowledge – particularly vital when building an office infrastructure outside the UK – and that they’ll get the best possible products for their business.”

All three new locations required a complete infrastructure design and installation, including cabling, security and resilience as well as provisioning for all connectivity. The SAS Group installed Cisco routers and switches and implemented all LAN switching equipment. It also coordinated the services of all local carriers and the phone system supplier.