Forterro has supported Glazerite in completing a major eight month upgrade to its servers and dataset, which is already delivering what Paul Jagger, Glazerite’s head of group IT, describes as “significant performance benefits for customers and colleagues.”
Forterro has been Glazerite’s software partner since the company was founded in 2000. Over the past 26 years, Forterro has helped the Wellingborough-based trade fabricator leverage maximum efficiencies and customer service enhancements from its suite of products. This includes Evolution and Satellite pricing, ordering and manufacturing software, EvoNet order tracking and stock control system and the Courier electronic proof of delivery tool.
The latest project enabled Glazerite’s planned switch to a new server as part of ongoing investments to ensure the scalability, security and cost-efficiency of its IT systems. Forterro’s software development division in Scotland worked closely with Paul Jagger and his team to scope and plan the programme, which involved a complete dataset rebuild.
Impressively, that rebuild was completed ahead of schedule, ensuring that Glazerite could switch their order processing function onto the server a month early and ensure it was fully populated before going live.
The dataset rebuild project, led by Glazerite’s Senior Software Product Developer, Andy Thompson, has allowed Glazerite to remove all redundant profiles and hardware from its system as well as consolidating its machining set up. This has, in turn delivered a faster, sleeker and easier to maintain system.
Forterro completed the detailed work required for Glazerite to change away from a 25-year-old dataset. This included implementing changes to Glazerite’s Batch Release Module, updating factory machine drivers, modifying the GlazeBot automated tasks and reporting tool, supporting changes to Courier, and creating a new set up for the EvoSatellite system.
Crucially, EvoNet, used for order management and tracking, item barcode tracking with scanpoint info screens and stock control – was recreated and amended jointly by Glazerite and Forterro. This allowed the system to work dynamically with orders from both servers, eliminating the risk of errors, bottlenecks and duplication.
Paul said: “Our advanced IT set up has always been an important differentiator for us in this market, and this project ensures that we maintain that advantage. There is always some inherent risk in migrating to a new server, but working with the Forterro team ensured that we were able to mitigate that risk almost entirely. Their support was crucial in the successful delivery of this project.
“The feedback I’ve received from both within Glazerite and from our customers using our EvoSatellite ordering system is that the transition has been seamless, with significant performance improvements
“The support we received from the team at Forterro was key to the success of this project. This was such a complex change with many moving parts, yet Glazerite’s operations didn’t miss a beat during the implementation phase of the switchover.”
