New communications platform needed in Penlon's contribution to manufacture 15,000 ventilators in the UK
Penlon is a medical devices manufacturer, operating out of Abingdon in Oxfordshire and with a presence in over 90 countries around the world.
The challenge
In March 2020, the company took up the UK Government’s “call to arms” to support the NHS and save lives, by switching its output in the drive to create 15,000 urgently-needed ventilators to support hospitals across the country.
Their effort was as part of the VentilatorChallengeUK consortium led by High Value Manufacturing Catapult, a group of manufacturing research centres in the UK.
The solution
The consortium - which includes companies such as Mercedes Benz, Airbus, and several Formula One racing teams - used Microsoft Teams as the common communications platform. Penlon needed to implement a company-wide adoption of the platform overnight to work in the supply chain, but also chose to go one step further with Claranet’s newly released Teams Voice solution.
By integrating Microsoft’s Office365 and Teams suite into our leading hosted voice platform, Teams Voice offered the manufacturer a flexible, hybrid platform for all their business needs.
"There were lots of challenges dealing with a new supply chain so quickly, and the ramp up in production."
The result
In this eight-minute video, Tony Serratore, Penlon’s Head of IT, explains how Claranet rolled out Teams Voice across their organisation in just 24-hours and provided training for full adoption. This coincided with the UK lockdown and the need for Penlon to adapt to homeworking.
Hear what Tony has to say about the new way of working and how – with Teams Voice firmly embedded – the company was able to maintain business as usual remotely and play an essential role in producing the ventilators needed by the NHS.
First, a few written words:
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Personally, I feel overcome by the real generosity of the Claranet team to get the job done and in quick time. Each and every one of you should be proud of what’s been achieved.
"The goal is to save lives and Claranet has played its part. Here’s to a brighter future for all of us.
Watch the video
Repeatable and scalable
Claranet Teams Voice solution has also enabled a leading architectural firm in the UK – Allford Hall Monaghan Morris – to unify its communication and shift 500 employees to remote working overnight. You can read more here.
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