Providing the Technical Power
East Penn Manufacturing is a private, family-owned company operating the largest single-site, lead-acid battery manufacturing facility in the world. East Penn has facilities and joint ventures around the globe. In addition to its well-known Deka brand of automobile batteries, the company manufactures batteries for private label and OEM applications. East Penn designs and manufactures motive power batteries for industrial lift trucks, airline ground support, automated guided vehicles (AGV), and the rail & locomotive industries.
Challenges
East Penn is planning significant growth over the next five years and wanted to ensure its technology infrastructure and staff were positioned to accommodate that growth. With more of its manufacturing facilities becoming highly automated, the company needed to assess its capabilities for gathering and analyzing data as well as controlling manufacturing machinery. Increased collaboration between operations and IT is required for new product development, quality control standards, and improved operational efficiency.
Solution
Weidenhammer interviewed over 50 employees including executive leaders, business unit leaders, and IT staff to determine the future business objectives, the current state of the technology environment, and pain points associated with that technology. In addition, a detailed review of the existing infrastructure, enterprise applications, and IT staff expertise was performed.
Based on this information, a roadmap of specific steps was created to improve collaboration between operations and IT, reduce specific pain points, and increase communication about strategic technology initiatives. The increased communication enables IT to better plan its initiatives to meet the future business demands.
