Berendsen is one of Europe’s leading textile service companies and through its owners, Davis Service Group Plc, is the only listed company in Europe that is focused on textile rental services in the business-to-business sector.

Founded in 1854, today Berendsen Group consists of an international network of local companies with a total of almost 7,000 employees in nine countries. In the Netherlands, Berendsen is a leader in work wear rental handling more than 100,000 garments a week for the catering, shipbuilding and automotive industry at its 10 laundry factory locations around the country.

The customer international network for work wear rental 7,000 employees nine countries 10 factory locations in the Netherlands

Cleaning up the ICT infrastructure
Collecting, washing, repairing and replacing work uniforms and garments on an international scale is a complicated business. In the Netherlands, Berendsen employs barcode and RFID tracking technology to ensure each garment is processed effectively but ICT Manager Gerard Vos wanted to bring more effective control and management to the PCs at the 10 factory locations around the country.

“Managing the ICT needs of 600 people across the different sites from one central location with just four full-time staff was becoming an increasing challenge. Each location had its own Local Area Network, server and PCs serving the factory floor and customer service operations. In addition, Berendsen had the additional challenge of 150 home workers, each with PC support. “When there was a problem with a PC, it could mean one of the team making a 200km trip to fix it,” said Gerard Vos. “We were experiencing all the usual management problems of PCs. Upgrades and maintenance had to be carried out onsite by qualified staff and because PCs have moving parts, they tend to fail more often. It was not an effective use of our time.”

The challenge managing 600 users at different sites with just 4 fulltime IT staff members servicing 150 teleworkers

Partnership worked for server-based computing solution
Gerard worked with reseller partner Square One Solutions to install a server-based computing environment using Microsoft Terminal Services and IGEL Technology thin clients across all of its Netherlands’ facilities.

“Square One Solutions’ support and partnership with IGEL has been top quality from day one,” said Gerard. “We found them very responsive and helpful in establishing the new solution and they are now our partner for everything thin client related.”

IGEL proved to be the best for our needs
IGEL Technology’s 2110 LX thin clients with Linux capability have now been rolled out to all customer service and home worker locations. “We tested several other brands, but IGEL proved to be the best for our situation,” said Gerard. “IGEL could not be beaten for price, quality and functionality.”

The solution applications accessed: Microsoft® Office with specific CRM applications number of thin client users: 350 to date IGEL-2110 LX Smart Terminal Services OS: Microsoft® Terminal Server network used: Terminal Services server farms over WAN

The home workers use the 2110 LX using Linux and a Cisco VPN client to connect to Berendsen’s VPN using two-factor authentication security tokens. “This saves us around 200 Euros per home worker in Microsoft licensing costs,”
said Gerard.

“We now have a completely centralised solution. We can concentrate on managing the terminal server farms and the thin clients can be upgraded and managed remotely. On the rare occasions we need to replace a unit, we simply keep them onsite and ask a local person to unwrap and plug in the new unit. It is so simple, we do the rest from here.”