Railtrain

Railtrain streamlines inter-office communication with Ricoh

Railtrain is a specialist provider of rail construction, maintenance, and training services to operators across Australia since 2003. As a result of their business expansion, the company needed to upgrade from their legacy voice-only communications platform to an integrated communications platform that could help their employees communicate and collaborate more effectively across teams, workspaces, and locations. This case study reveals how Ricoh helped Railtrain achieve their goals.

Key highlights

• Quick deployment of new communications platform (within three weeks)
• A collaboration platform with intuitive user interfaces requiring minimal training
• Significant improvement in collaboration and communication across the company
• Increased productivity through seamless integration between Ricoh Interactive Collaboration Boards and the Unified Communications Solution
• 30% savings on travel budget and conference call costs

The challenge

Having an effective means of communicating between the offices is vital when there are employees located all around the country. However, with increasing conference call costs, travel costs, and the limitations of a legacy voice-only communications platform, Railtrain decided to look for new solutions that could help them maintain vital communication and support their expanding operations across the country.

The solution

Railtrain chose Ricoh solutions. They deployed an 86-inch Interactive Collaboration Board in their Perth headquarters and a 65-inch Interactive Collaboration Board in Newcastle, both seamlessly integrated with the cloud-based video conferencing platform. The deployment process was completed within three weeks, enabling employees to quickly adapt and utilise the new way of collaborating with colleagues across offices.

The outcome

Improved quality of communications

Audio conference calls were replaced with video interactions, greatly improving the quality of team meetings. The Interactive Collaboration Boards and the video conferencing platform also assisted during a recent ISO9001 and AS4801 external audit review. Rather than needing to travel to Perth, senior managers could answer questions and review materials with the auditor via a video conference.

Greater flexibility led to enhanced efficiency

Employees were more motivated to initiate video calls with each other rather than relying on lengthy email exchanges—saving time and creating better results.

Increased productivity

The Interactive Collaboration Boards in Perth and Newcastle enabled employees in both locations to share everything from meeting agendas and notes to documents and diagrams. Materials displayed on the screens can be annotated by employees with the results automatically captured and digitally stored for later review—resulting in more productive meetings and improved collaboration.

Reduced costs

Railtrain reduced its travel budget by 30%, equating to a substantial annual cost saving.

The Future Plan

As the deployed Unified Communications Solution is a cloud-based platform, employees can join in meetings from any location, requiring nothing more than a smartphone or tablet device to get connected. The system provides interoperability using a virtual meeting room, which enables employees to hold video conferences where participants can see and hear each other, as well as share presentations.