Labfacility is a family-owned business in South Yorkshire. They are leaders in temperature and process technologies since 1971. Labfacility are one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of Temperature Sensors, Thermocouple Connectors, and associated Temperature Instrumentation and stockists of Thermocouple Cables.
Labfacility has a large factory in Sheffield and a small office in Bognor Regis. The Sheffield site is the main manufacturing hub, while the Bognor Regis office handles accounts and sales.
The Challenge
Labfacility previously had physical servers at both sites, but the site-to-site connection was slow and unreliable, leading to frequent connection losses. If there was an outage of the Pegasus server in Bognor Regis, this affected the other site too causing further disruptions across the business.
The onsite servers became outdated quickly, leading to performance issues. There were also security issues that came along with their on-premises servers, such as weak passwords and physical security lapses.
The Bognor site had an app server with Pegasus Opera and a Hyper V server with virtual servers. The business relies heavily on Pegasus as it’s used for accounting, sales, CRM, and stock management.
The Solution
To modernise Labfacility’s IT estate, Team TSG and the Labfacility team made the decision to implement Microsoft Azure and to host Pegasus in the cloud. This meant that Pegasus could still be used but on a much more reliable network.
The migration to the cloud was the initial project. Pegasus on the cloud has allowed for a seamless integration with Qlik. Qlik is a data integration, analytics, and artificial intelligence platform and it has changed the way Labfacility operate, making it the most significant change in the last 20 years. Reporting and data visibility has massively improved since the implementation.
The Results
Since the implementation of moving to the cloud, hosting Pegasus on Azure, and implementing Qlik, Labfacility have seen the following benefits:
Automatic updates: There is no longer a worry of out-of-date software. Azure automatically updates so the team is always using the latest version.
Better efficiency: Improved efficiency with up-to-date software and better synchronisation across sites.
Enhanced reporting: The integration between Qlik and Pegasus has significantly improved efficiency within the business by providing easy access to data and reports.
Improved security: Moving to the cloud with enhanced security measures like two-factor authentication.
Enhanced reliability: Each site can now run independently, reducing downtime due to connectivity issues.
Streamlined processes: Labfacility’s accounting team has seen a significant improvement in data visibility and reporting capabilities through the Qlik software, which streamlined access to pricing, stock, and other critical data.
