Telephony, Networks & Carrier Services - Rhenus Logistics

Rhenus Logistics on Road to Savings

Pennine Telecom helped deliver significant savings on call and cabling costs to Rhenus Logistics after installing an energy saving VoIP solution for the international freight transporter.

Cost savings of around 30 percent were secured through a telecoms systems upgrade and switch of line provision to Pennine’s own billing platform at Rhenus’s recently expanded sites in Basildon, Bradford and Cannock.

Rhenus, which employs 160 staff and has 9,000 UK clients, called in Pennine to specify, plan and install the multi-site solution. This included upgrading Basildon’s old Avaya INDeX telephone system to a new Avaya IP500 using VoIP.  IP500s were also then installed at Bradford and Cannock with all sites benefiting from wireless networks and Extreme local area network switches which can reduce energy consumption by up to 60 percent by automatically powering down devices such as handsets when they are not in use.

“It’s saving us money,” reports Rhenus’ Computer Network Manager, Tony Crowther. “We can now use the IP data lines to make phone calls between sites and it doesn’t cost us anything. We also moved our lines and calls over to Pennine’s billing platform resulting in our monthly bills immediately falling by around £2,000. By going down the IP route we were able to simplify the network because the PCs run off the IP Phones rather than a separate network point. I reckon that took a good 30 per cent off our cabling costs”

Simultaneous installation of a wi-fi network across warehousing, offices, boardrooms and meeting rooms has also enhanced productivity and service across the business, enabling flexible working. Not only can staff communicate wirelessly via Avaya 3641 IP phones but they can track and trace the 200,000 consignments Rhenus handles every year via handheld bar-code scanners. 

Mr. Crowther says that good planning meant the upgrade went as smoothly as could have been hoped for.  “Pennine were excellent from start to finish. We’ve used them for quite a while now and were always confident everything would go well.  Moving sites can be a stressful process, particularly moving to new purpose built sites that needed telecoms.  The high level of support and product and services provided to us by Pennine over the last 14 months greatly assisted us managing the whole process in an effective and timely manner.”

Having benefited from immediate cost savings and gained greater confidence in the integrity and quality of the IP network Rhenus is now looking to expand it across the UK. “We’re hoping to get all 11 of our sites onto the IP link, “reports Crowther.

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