The Truss Company Case Study

ABOUT THE TRUSS COMPANY

The Truss Company, a leading manufacturer of engineered wood roof and floor trusses, was founded in 1985. It sells primarily to professional contractors in the residential and commercial construction field. The company operates eight state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities throughout the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Although primarily a manufacturer, the company also reviews blueprints, makes engineering calculations, and assists with project designs.

A NEW CHALLENGE

Fresh on the heels of overcoming the challenge of unifying the company’s CRM and ERP systems, the pandemic lockdown hit on March 23, 2020, and everything changed immediately. Company President Martin D. Waiss, VP Cliff J. Foster, and the rest of the C-level executives called an all-hands meeting to determine what to do next. Everyone was in shock – How could the Governor declare a state of emergency and issue a mandatory stay-at-home order?!
After the initial shock wore off, other questions quickly arose. How will employees work? How can we continue to serve our customers? What about moving supplies? Can we still drive on the roads? The questions came faster than the answers. Although the room was in a panic, Mark Gallant, System Administrator, began to smile because he knew they already had a solution to deal with the problem. Mark made the announcement, “We’re in a hosted environment. Tell everyone to take their computers from the office and go home.”

Who would have known that the solution for a completely unrelated problem – the unification of the organization’s database onto a cloud environment – would save the day when it came time to rethink how the company operates? “I can’t express my gratitude for IronOrbit’s hosted environment. The benefits to our company have been innumerable,” says Mark Gallant. “You can’t even measure what IronOrbit has enabled our company to achieve. A good number of other companies in our industry were completely decimated for
months.” There was a paradigm shift in the company’s view of work structure. This level of flexibility was invaluable and reassured employees of the company’s regard for their quality of life. Leadership also recognized their options, allowing them to repurpose existing office space and lower or eliminate future overhead expenses. They could hire global talent while mitigating immigration issues and benefiting from increased productivity. Workers receive geographic flexibility and an increased sense of work-life balance.

Mark mentions an engineer from East India who went home for two weeks for a family wedding. He took his laptop and participated in an important family event while being able to work remotely. Another engineer lives in Canada and wants to take a few months to travel to Mexico during the summer. He was able to travel, log in at specified times, work effectively, and maintain his schedule.

The benefits of being a part of IronOrbit’s cloud ecosystem don’t stop at the operations level. The entire workforce of the Truss Company enjoys a better work-life and home-life because of the time saved commuting; there’s more time to relax and participate in family experiences. Research has shown that WFH programs increase employee engagement and lower attrition because workers are happier and more productive. The successful transition of the Truss Company shows that even well-established and mature organizations can make dramatic changes quickly. It’s not a question of whether a work-from-anywhere scenario is possible but rather a question of what is needed to make it possible. As the Truss Company discovered, you’ll be ready for anything by modernizing your IT infrastructure.

Mark Gallant,
System Administrator

Because of IronOrbit’s special brand of DaaS, the Truss Company was able to transition from oce to work from home (WFH) while decimated competitors reeled at the outset of the pandemic. “You plan for months and months to get into this solution, and then God created the best problem to show you how beneficial it is.”

THE TRUSS COMPANY SOLUTION

IronOrbit deployed over 170+ Premier INFINITY Workspaces across all of Truss facilities and allocated over 7TB of our INFINITY Data & Back-Up Storage. The Truss company utilizes IronOrbit 2Factor Authentication as an extra security measure to access all of their cloud desktops. IronOrbit Support Services manages multiple O365 Products as well as Truss Companies’ day-to-day
technical needs.