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SUCCESS STORY Case Study: Enjoy Life Foods Fulton May Solutions (FMS) is a fast-growing, professional information technology services company that is frequently called upon to resolve complex technological challenges. Fulton May has been working with Enjoy Life Foods, an allergy-friendly food products company for over six years, managing their network and server environments. Recently, Enjoy Life Foods (ELF) brought a new challenge to the tech team at FMS to resolve. Enjoy Life Foods produces gluten-free, non-GMO, allergy-friendly foods, and their products are in high demand. The company is recognized worldwide for allergy-friendly, tasty, healthy snacks. Their growth since inception led to the need to expand production capacity. Not only was ELF moving their production facility from Illinois to Indiana and office staff to a new location in Chicago, during the transition they needed to completely redesign their existing network to a cloud based platform which enables multi-site management – and keep the company functioning online throughout. ELF was planning for future growth and needed a flexible cloud-based platform to continue to meet their ever- expanding needs. The team at Fulton May was engaged to plan and execute the critical path to ensure ELF remained alive and well online during the transition, managing the details of the technology needed in the new location, including procurement and installation. Enjoy

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Page 1: Case Study: Enjoy Life Foods

S U C C E S S S T O R Y

Case Study: Enjoy Life Foods

Fulton May Solutions (FMS) is a fast-growing, professional information technology services company that is frequently called upon to resolve complex technological challenges. Fulton May has been working with Enjoy Life Foods, an allergy-friendly food products company for over six years, managing their network and server environments. Recently, Enjoy Life Foods (ELF) brought a new challenge to the tech team at FMS to resolve.

Enjoy Life Foods produces gluten-free, non-GMO, allergy-friendly foods, and their products are in high demand. The company is

recognized worldwide for allergy-friendly, tasty, healthy snacks. Their growth since inception led to the need to expand production capacity.

Not only was ELF moving their production facility from Illinois to Indiana and office staff to a new location in Chicago, during the transition they needed to completely redesign their existing network to a cloud based platform which enables multi-site management – and keep the company functioning online throughout. ELF was planning for future growth and needed a flexible cloud-based platform to continue to meet their ever-expanding needs.

The team at Fulton May was engaged to plan and execute the critical path to ensure ELF remained alive and well online during the transition, managing the details of the technology needed in the new location, including procurement and installation. Enjoy

Page 2: Case Study: Enjoy Life Foods

S U C C E S S S T O R Y

Life Foods Director of IT, Chris Janes, mentioned, “It has been a great relationship. They played a hands on role in setting up

the network infrastructure for our brand new 200K square foot production facility which was implemented on-time and without any issues”. This extensive project involved several steps, each of which was strategically mapped for a seamless transition.

Step One: Project Planning

The team at Fulton May both planned and executed this complex transition, from start to finish. They worked closely with the ELF team and Cisco Meraki in the inception phase so that every concern was fully addressed in planning the execution of the project.

Step Two: Implementation

To achieve a seamless transition, FMS partnered with Cisco Meraki and other vendors to establish the necessary technology at the new ELF location for proper network coverage, including network equipment and infrastructure layout, cabling, wireless access points placements (47), printers, and fiber run locations. FMS also managed details such as kiosk computers in the break room, battery backups, power distribution, rack and shelving, and countless other elements that would be needed in a 200,000 sq ft warehouse facility– all of which were carefully planned to establish the perfect work environment as envisioned by the ELF team.

Step Three: Execution

As the new ELF facility is located in a rural area of Indiana, there were limited options for Internet providers, and the building had not been wired with a foundation that met the new technological needs of this growing company. The FMS team ensured that the correct equipment was purchased, installed and configured to provide ELF with multiple internet connections to assure redundancy was in place . “The biggest obstacle was actually getting a fiber optic line into the facility. Fulton May took the lead and worked with us to find a viable alternative option we could use to keep things moving even though the fiber line was not ready,” said Janes. In spite of this issue, the execution of the project moved forward as planned, and ELF is now enjoying their new facility, as well as a management and system infrastructure that is located 100% in the cloud -- all designed and implemented by the team at FMS. The entire project was completed in about six weeks and was up and running in May 2016.

Page 3: Case Study: Enjoy Life Foods

S U C C E S S S T O R Y

Ongoing Remote Management and Support

During the transition, Enjoy Life Foods met their goals of remaining online and establishing a cloud-based infrastructure as they envisioned, including online phone services, network topology design with ultimate flexibility, remote connectivity, configuration of all network components, new servers installed, and a scope of other technological details. The transition was accomplished seamlessly and professionally. Once all the pieces were in place and the staff relocated to the new facility, FMS has continued in their IT role, managing and supporting the ELF network remotely and saving them on the cost of hiring onsite IT personnel. “The partnership between Enjoy Life Foods and Fulton May is one that I hope will continue for years to come,” concluded Janes.