HJ Heinz:
Extending the Value of Proven Systems
Hardware
- Hewlett-Packard/Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) VAX Systems
- EMC Corporation/Data General Servers
Proven Partnership
"We've been working with Park Place as a partnership for 10 years if not more. Weekends, holidays, Park Place answers and delivers the service we need to keep our critical systems running, regardless of what kind of hardware it is."
Stephen Bratetich, Senior Information System Infrastructure Manager, HJ Heinz
Summary
Heinz stands as one of the world’s leading producers of healthy, convenient foods for 140 years.
Founded in Sharpsburg, PA in 1869 by Henry John Heinz, today Heinz is a $10 billion global company with its products enjoying leading market share in more than 50 countries. It sells 650 million bottles of its famous ketchup every year and a range of packaged and frozen food.
Heinz employs approximately 32,500 people around the globe. In the US, it operates 22 plants stretched across the continent and maintains IT capabilities in each plant.
Park Place Technologies has been helping Heinz keep critical systems online for more than 10 years.
Mature mission-critical systems
Heinz operates a wide range of IT systems to support its diverse administrative, operations, sales, marketing, manufacturing and distribution activities. Among these IT systems are two mature mission-critical systems which include Data General, acquired by EMC Corporation in 1999, and Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) VAX systems. DEC was acquired by Compaq in 1988 which merged with Hewlett-Packard in 2002.
These systems continue to perform their tasks well and are sufficient to meet the company’s production needs and desired service levels. However, Data General and DEC are no longer in business, and the hardware is long out of production.
For years Heinz relied on an independent service provider to support the Data General equipment in particular. About ten years ago that provider arbitrarily raised maintenance fees to a level Heinz couldn’t accept. Stephen Bratetich, Heinz Senior Information Systems Infrastructure Manager recalls, “We were informed by the previous service provider that support was being discontinued and given one month notice.” Bratetich is responsible for IT systems in all Heinz plants and immediately began looking for another service provider."
The right maintenance solution
After initial discussions, Park Place entered into a contract with Heinz that provided significant cost savings over the previous provider and established a foundation for a working partnership that has lasted over ten years and looks to continue in the future.
Park Place assumed responsibility for keeping both mission critical systems running and performing as expected. “Usually when there is a problem, it’s a parts issue,” says Bratetich. Common power outages that necessitate a restart, for example, stress IT systems and cause components to fail. Park Place collected an inventory of parts sufficient to maintain spare components at key plants to ensure the quick resumption of processing.
Often the problems occur on weekends and holidays. For example, once Heinz was processing payroll just before Thanksgiving when a Data General server failed. Park Place immediately jumped on the problem and had resources on site within 4 hours. The system was brought back within 24 hours and nobody missed a paycheck. “We’ve had problems on July 4, on New Year’s Day, but whenever it happened Park Place responded fast,” recalls Bratetich.
Beyond responding to emergencies, Park Place makes periodic, proactive visits to various plants to check on the overall health of the systems and ensure proper replenishment of any parts.
Achieving ongoing value
Bratetich recognizes that Heinz’s Data General and DEC servers cannot last forever. “We can keep them going as long as they do the job, and Park Place has parts,” he notes.
With Park Place’s help, Heinz set up a backup Data General system in a second location as a disaster recovery site. If it experiences a failure at a main production facility, they can bring up the backup Data General server within 36 hours.
Heinz continues to get value from the legacy servers and with Park Place services is able to keep these critical systems running with minimal Heinz staff, team to focus on more strategic IT initiatives.
“We have a real partnership with Park Place,” Bratetich concludes.
About Park Place Technologies
Park Place Technologies is the premier provider of multi-platform, multi-vendor data center hardware maintenance services. Park Place enables its customers to extend the life of their IT equipment at a significant cost savings over the manufacturer. Park Place Technologies is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio with a world class Service Operations Center based outside of Boston, MA and an experienced team of Level III Service Engineers serving North America. Park Place’s 20 years of experience with over 3,000 businesses make it a cost-effective, secure alternative to OEM extended warranty programs.
Topics: EMC, HP, Manufacturing, Storage, Server