Kadant Case Study
The Client
From its manufacturing location in Bury, Lancashire, Kadant UK Ltd serves clients across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, and South Asia.
It is a specialist arm of global technology and engineered systems provider Kadant Inc. which employs some 3,000 employees in 21 countries. Kadant UK Ltd provides sales and applications expertise a long with the design and manufacture of doctoring, cleaning, and filtration product lines.
Business Needs
Kadant UK’s boardroom was previously served by an ageing conferencing system which had failed.
The company temporarily deployed a pre-existing conference camera to plug the communications gap but recognised that it needed to upgrade its facilities.
“We’d already started to use Microsoft Teams and recognised it was more flexible, easier, and in more widespread use. Everybody was using it and it integrated with everything,” explains IT Manager, Dominic Vieceli.
“We knew we were going to have to upgrade at some point to some kind of Microsoft Teams Rooms system.”
With a 20-strong person management team dependent upon video-conferencing and collaboration tools to host domestic and international meetings, a robust solution that delivered clear audio-visual communications was imperative.
Whilst other options were considered, a longterm relationship with Avoira gave confidence in the quality of advice, installation expertise, and service standards our team could provide. “We’d been an Avoira telephony customer for many years,” he confirms, adding that the increasing importance of video-conferencing meant he was keen for the new solution to benefit from the support of a professional corporate video-conferencing specialist.
“The company that implemented our previous solution was more of a home audio-visual company. To be fair they did a good job, but we didn’t want to continue with the business being supported by an in-home focused company.”
The Solution
Having scoped Kadant’s needs, our team recommended deployment of Yealink’s MVC860 Microsoft Teams Rooms system.
Comprising a UVC86 4K dual-eye tracking video conference camera, MCore mini-PC and MTouch II touch panel, this package is specifically designed for use in medium to large rooms.
The panoramic camera incorporates a range of communication and collaboration enhancing technologies such as remote Pan Tilt Zoom (PYZ) functionality and a 90o field of view.
With a native Microsoft Teams interface, the intuitive touch panel enables easy control of the camera, call, content sharing, and other functions. Equipped with a human motion sensor it will even switch itself on as you enter a room to speed the opening of a meeting.
“Avoira recommended the Yealink system to us. I’d known about their phones for years so I was open to the suggestion,” says Dominic. But, of course, Kadant wanted to see for themselves that the kit would meet its needs before committing to the solution.
“Avoira arranged a demonstration for the managing director and a few of the management team and we all liked the Yealink solution,” reports Dominic. Given the green light, our engineers were soon
on site installing the Yealink package and integrating it with a new trolley-mounted, 50” Sony TV screen as well as an existing projector.
The Benefits
Key for Dominic and fellow members of the management team is the sheer simplicity of the Yealink system.
“The most confusing part of the whole package is the TV,” laughs Dominic. “Everything else is so intuitive.”
The response from fellow users has also been positive, with the system’s collaborative tools aiding productivity.
“All reports are that everybody’s enjoying it. They’re well versed in Microsoft Teams so they know they can do exactly what they do on their desktops in the boardroom.”
He reports that thanks to the tracking camera and other embedded technologies, users, whether in the room or participating remotely, feel equally engaged.
