Federal regulations that govern the coal and natural gas industry state that in the event of a communications failure within a company, all operations must be shut down. This mandate presented a real challenge for our client, a major American energy company. More than 10,000 workers, located at dozens of locations nationwide, were connected by an old communications system headquartered at one facility. A critical failure would force a hard-stop across the entire company. To complicate matters, a cellular solution was not an option — this company operates in many remote, rural areas that lack a viable wireless signal. We were engaged to design and implement a solution that would overcome the geographic and regulatory hurdles. 

The right communications design would accomplish this, and provide new tools that would improve collaboration between locations.

Our engineers designed a new, decentralized communications infrastructure with a private branch exchange (PBX) hosted at each site. The built-in redundancy created a network of independent sites that could continue operating if one was brought down. As a further safeguard, we also integrated the Avaya platform with the company’s backup satellite communications, which helped insulate individual sites against system failure.

By integrating the latest Avaya Aura application suite with Microsoft Lync, we provided a simplified call routing strategy, expanded dial-plan capabilities, and enhanced mobility features. Now, the workforce could receive voice messages via email, leverage click-to-call and chat functionality, and monitor the system from any site. In addition, the stability and reliability of the new system has shown a dramatic increase in uptime (seamless operations with no offline time needed) compared to the company’s previous system.

The company was not looking for a quick fix, but a long-term solution that would provide maximum business continuity through a resilient system and an empowered workforce. We continue to work with this client on additional operational efficiency initiatives.