Boston Centerless Scales Production & Adapts to Remote Work With the CurrentWare Suite
CurrentWare has been nothing but supportive of us since we started.
This is probably one of the best systems that we’ve ever invested in.
About the Company
Boston Centerless is a leading supplier of high-precision bar materials. For over 60 years Boston Centerless has been providing unmatched quality and service in ultra-precision ground products, centerless grinding services, and supply chain management.
Headquarters Boston, Massachusetts | Industry Manufacturing |
Business Type B2C | Company Size 130+ Endpoints |
December 2020 Update
Boston Centerless Adapts to Remote Work
During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Since our original interview with Larry in 2018, Boston Centerless, like many other companies, has had to adapt their processes and technology to enable remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since CurrentWare’s solutions can manage on-premises and remote devices alike, Larry was able to adjust their policies to account for the new challenges the company would face during their transition.
From a productivity perspective many department managers were concerned about how well their staff would adapt to their new work environment.
BrowseReporter’s user activity reports provided valuable insights into how their newly remote employees’ work habits changed between working in the office and working from home.
“When our staff started working from home during COVID-19 we gave department managers the ability to generate reports; they can see exactly what their staff are up to so they can rest assured that everyone is working productively.”
Once we got CurrentWare installed it opened the door for remote work for us; we could control the equipment and make sure our people were being productive and safe.
Original Case Study
Boston Centerless Scales Production
With the CurrentWare Suite
The Challenge
As a manufacturing company with 60+ years of experience, Boston Centerless is committed to excellence in all that they do.
To maintain this standard of excellence they knew that they needed to keep their workforce productive and secure no matter where they work.
As part of this initiative, Boston Centerless’ Information Technology Manager Larry Salvucci was tasked with finding a solution for addressing the emerging risk of data loss and threats to unprotected devices.
At first Larry resourcefully attempted to leverage their existing internal capabilities such as their firewall to monitor and restrict activity within their network, but it lacked the granular control and insights Boston Centerless needed to ensure that documents with sensitive internal information were kept private.
It’s easy to overlook the threat that can arise from within the company, especially when devices are being taken off site.
The damage that data breaches can cause is enormous.
I have become increasingly aware of the range of threats that we need to defend against, from cyberattacks to simple workplace carelessness!
The Integral Role of the CurrentWare Suite
Once Larry found CurrentWare in 2018 he saw a clear vision for how each module in the CurrentWare Suite could meet the needs of his project.
- AccessPatrol’s USB security features would prevent data transfers to portable storage devices and stop employees from using high-risk personal devices
- BrowseControl’s web & app filtering features would block access to malicious websites and unwanted applications
- BrowseReporter’s computer activity monitoring features would work alongside BrowseControl to provide regulation over employee productivity and web browsing habits
- enPowerManager’s PC power management features would help the company save money and improve energy efficiency by shutting down idle computers at the end of the workday
In CurrentWare, I found a solution that fulfilled the criteria of my entire project within a single suite of software.
Effortless Deployment & Management
One concern that Larry had was the potential disruption and time investment that implementing a new solution across their entire organization could have.
Fortunately for him the CurrentWare Suite included a Remote Client Installation tool that allowed him to deploy the CurrentWare Clients to each PC in their organization from a centralized location.
With the CurrentWare Suite deployed, Larry was amazed to experience the advanced visibility and control afforded to him.
BrowseReporter’s reports informed management and employees alike when performance issues were related to excessive unproductive web browsing.
AccessPatrol’s USB control policies were configured to restrict access to removable media on a per-department basis before being adjusted to fit the needs of individual employees.
BrowseControl’s URL filter and category filter ensured that employees could not access inappropriate, dangerous, or unproductive websites.
Figuring out where we were losing productivity gave us a huge help when it came to increasing efficiency.
The reports inform HR decisions and motivate our employees.
Flexible Internet Access Policies
BrowseControl’s Category Filtering feature was a valuable time saver; it allowed Larry to effortlessly block undesirable websites across 100+ categories including Porn, Profanity, Social Networks, and Virus Infected sites in just a few clicks.
Like many companies, Boston Centerless’ employees have unique internet access needs based on their role. To adapt to this Larry was able to use BrowseControl’s Allow List to exempt the otherwise blocked sites that certain employees needed.
Only certain employees needed access to social media sites like Facebook, so we needed to control internet access to enforce our web usage policies across the organization.