Kingspan Case Study
The Client
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Kingspan started in 1965 as a small engineering and contracting business. Eugene Murtagh began manufacturing agricultural trailers behind his family business, Murtagh’s pub in Kingscourt, Ireland. In the following years Kingscourt Construction Group was formed and has since grown through acquisition to become a global multi-billion ££ provider of Insulation, Insulation Panels, Light & Air, Water & Energy and Access Floors.
Group IT based in Ireland provides the standards and guidelines for all IT teams worldwide, whilst running the multitude of projects involved with an organisation of this size, nature and complexity. The divisions are split across the different areas of the businesses and Pete Gifford is the Divisional IT Service Delivery manager at the Pembridge site, where he overseas IT Service Operations and Delivery for Kingspan Insulation Boards across UK & Ireland, Europe, Nordics, Middle East, Australia and the US.
The Service Desk is operating a follow the sun service across the globe, to support the manufacturing and production capabilities of the company. Operating 24/7*365, supporting some 3,000 global IT users that are reliant on the services and applications deployed.
The key business driver for growth and success is to ensure that the production lines do not stop, and IT are responsible for ensuring the IT components of this service are fit for purpose. Pete explains:
" The key challenge from an IT perspective is not only keeping up with the pace of change as the company expands through acquisition, but also maintaining agreed levels of service with the same resources. This is where automation and efficiency are, and, will remain key! "
As a qualified ITIL Expert, with years of experience in IT services, Pete fully understands the importance of well-defined structured process and a good team of people to maximise the return on any technology deployment. Having previously attained the ISO20000 award for IT Service Management, the emphasis for a better service was to find a tool that could service the requirements of IT and the demands of supporting the business.
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In order to improve, a new ITSM application was needed. Pete was happy to include Cherwell, following a personal recommendation, in the tool selection project that was initiated to replace the incumbent product which was no longer fit for purpose. Once the selection process was complete, Cherwell introduced Kingspan to Bright Horse as their implementation partner. The initial implementation was completed very quickly, with Service Request, Incident and Problem management processes in the workflow within months.
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The Service Desk logs an average of 150 service requests and incidents per day. With an existing support team and a number of new apprentices, training was conducted on the Cherwell tool, but Pete also identified the need for good process and customer service training to ensure the tool was used to its maximum potential.
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The relationship with Bright Horse suited the nature of the Kingspan project, Pete says.
" Bright Horse were so flexible, working with and listening to our needs as the customer. They really are a partner rather than just a supplier, we have built a relationship and continue to work with them on improving services "
The second phase of the project was to develop further ITIL processes including change management and to really market the use of the self-service portal to the business to encourage adoption. In order to meet the demands of internal audit a project was undertaken to list all services within the service catalogue in the tool. The CMDB is fully populated as management of endpoints, control of all desktops and laptops being another key audit requirement. This means when users log incidents, they can be identified by location, equipment and the relevant services, which also provides the relevant service level targets for resolution.
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There are plans to engage with other areas and teams within the business that would benefit from automating their workflows. Pete gives the example of the technical drawing team who receive a large number of requests, which they process using post-it notes and emails. A tool such as Cherwell would really facilitate an improved service through automation.
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The tool continues to grow with the organisation and Pete acknowledges the importance of being able to adopt and adapt the tool to the different processing requirements of the organisation.
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The relationship with Bright Horse continues with technical resource being provided to supplement ongoing projects as the tool evolves, and with customer service and soft skills training now being delivered onsite to the technical teams.
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Neil Keating, the MD of Bright Horse, says ‘Kingspan are a highly valued client of Bright Horse, we have grown the relationship over a number of years from the initial tool implementation, and continue to work with them from both a technical and professional services perspective. It is very important to us to actively listen to our customers and to respond with appropriate solutions.’
If you would like further information on the services Bright Horse offers or for assistance with your IT Service improvement programme, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 0118 402 8419, email us at info@brighthorse.co.uk