Meat processor forgoes 'Taj Mahal' of unified comms

T&R Pastoral, one of Australia’s leading meat processors, has opted not to install a large, all-in-one unified communications (UC) system, but instead implement what it calls a “small” system, with the option of adding more later on.

The family-owned company has dealings in meat procurement, processing and export, and has been in the meat processing industry for over 30 years. It supplies its products throughout Australia and to 80 countries around the world.

The company has grown substantially in its time, now with seven sites in Australia, as well as one in the US and one in China. In the last year alone, the company has acquired an Australian processor of lamb, mutton and goat, and 50% of an American meat importer.

Until recently, T&R had been using a traditional PABX. The company’s ICT Manager, Matt Kruschel, says that with the business expanding, the company needed to explore ways of modernising its communications systems to optimise its productivity and efficiency.

The company consequently looked at implementing a UC solution at its South Australian Murray Bridge plant - its biggest plant and also its head office, with more than 1000 employees.

“In our business we live and die by the telephone. The production environment is very harsh, so we needed to have robust telephony solution that combined digital, IP and analogue capabilities,” Kruschel says.

“We also wanted to ensure the solution was scalable and futureproof so we could expand and roll out the phone system to our other sites,” he says.

When the opportunity for a new telephony system arose, the company turned to Telbiz, a telecommunications outfit with which T&R had an existing relationship.

T&R looked at several solutions but eventually settled on NEC’s Univerge SV8100 IP Communications Server. The system provides a combination of IP, digital and analog circuit-switched technology including 40 IP, 40 digital and 45 analog services at T&R’s Murray Bridge site.

All employees at the site now have voicemail and the executive team has unified messaging. Executive team members also have IP handsets set up in their homes, which enable them to call connect into a router by VPN back into T&R’s telephony system.

Telbiz has also integrated the phone system into T&R’s existing rugged two-way radio system, which has given the business extra functionality over its existing infrastructure.

“[The system] has allowed us to move into the unified communications arena gently. We didn’t need the ‘Taj Mahal’ package that many vendors were offering. The NEC solution has allowed T&R Pastoral to start small and add on features when we need to,” Kruschel says.

He says the solution has improved the company’s efficiency and customer service.

“The voicemail and unified messaging features have reduced the number of missed calls we receive; we are much more on the ball than before. It means we can work faster and respond to people quicker,” Kruschel says.

“The IP-enabled solution has also provided our company with more flexibility. Many of our senior people live in Adelaide and often need to do business in the city. They now have the ability to make calls off our network through SIP trunking, rather than using their own private lines, which in the past has been a costly overhead for the company,” he says.

Telbiz sold the solution as part of a Telstra Business System bundle, which has allowed T&R to reduce its line rental and maintenance and call costs.

“We have more autonomy,” Kruschel says, “as we are able to customise the programming on site; and the internal auditing system allows us to better manage the company’s calling expenditure.”

The Murray Bridge site has proved to be a success and T&R has decided to link the server to three of its other sites, located in South Australia and Queensland.