Pit & Quarry, September 2016
In both 2004 and 2013 the company made some big changes related to its technology to improve operations at all of its locations TECHNICAL PARTNERSHIP One change Pine Bluff made in 2004 was to appoint Alan Perry as IT director The company launched an IT department that year The company had very limited technology prior to me coming in Perry says Weve gone from virtually no IT resources to something amazingly huge from where we started Since day one Perry says he kept busy as the companys IT director The first few years it was a mad dash trying to get a computer network deployed he says As a business that manages many locations in two industries Pine Bluff deployed computers to 400 people in administrative positions such as plant managers and office personnel After all computers were deployed Perry regularly received calls from users to fix problems related to passwords or network failures While Perry doesnt mind taking user calls these problems became his entire work schedule and made it almost impossible for him to take on larger projects A couple of years after Perry started with the company Pine Bluff hired two other people to its IT department to ease Perrys workload Yet even with the additional help Perry says he and his teammates seemed to face a never ending list of user issues I think around 2013 we realized we needed a new solution or else my team would drown in work Perry says We were so busy handling customer issues each day that we found ourselves in a catch 22 position We were not able to adequately maintain our system resources because all of our time was spent fixing the resulting problems We couldnt prevent daily problems When Pine Bluff decided to boost its information technology IT department it helped all aspects of the operation including crushing and screening from occurring because we lacked the time to invest into performing system maintenance that if completed would have prevented the problems we were having from occurring in the first place he adds At the time Pine Bluff had two options to resolve its IT problems either hire an additional employee or outsource some of the work Perry who reports directly to Pine Bluffs owner met with the owner to discuss some of the technical problems I asked him Would you prefer to pay a monthly service fee to outsource some of the work or would you rather hire more people Perry says The two men explored the options and found that outsourcing seemed to pitandquarry com September 2016 PIT QUARRY 39
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