Juken New Zealand Ltd (Juken) manufactures advanced and innovative wood products in four modern and efficient processing mills located near Kaitaia in Northland, Gisborne on the East Coast, and Masterton in the Wairarapa. The raw timber for the manufacturing process is milled from radiata pine plantations whose quality and sustainability is also managed by Juken. Products produced are consumed locally in New Zealand and are also shipped overseas from 5 North Island Ports – Marsden Point, Auckland, Gisborne, Napier, and Wellington. When the Auckland head office is included Juken employs nearly 900 people and is a huge contributor to the local communities where it operates.
All Juken sites (including Ports) are connected via a wide area network designed and implemented by Network Edge which facilitates access to centralised business critical manufacturing systems, general business systems, and the Internet. Juken’s business operates 24/7 and manufacturing and shipping is dependent on the availability of critical applications so the network was designed for high availability. All sites are connected using a minimum of two private circuits derived from different carrier networks. Equal cost routing then ensures that in the event of any type of circuit failure the network automatically self-heals and access to applications is maintained.
Network Edge manages the Juken network 24/7 from their Network Operations Centre (NOC) in Auckland. The network management service includes monitoring the availability of all routers and firewalls, maintaining the routing environment for non-stop operation, logging and evaluating network events, and managing repair and restoration for any circuit failures. The service includes quarterly service level reporting and service management via meetings and regular updates.
CFO/CIO for Juken Graham Maples has been a strong supporter of Network Edge since the network was implemented and comments: “The robustness and availability of our wide area network is critical to our business. Since the original implementation Network Edge has continued to provision and manage our network and our access to the Internet effectively and seamlessly. The overall network environment is typically very reliable allowing our business to operate as effectively and efficiently as possible.”
As network services and technology advance Network Edge has recommended and implemented changes to circuit suppliers and Internet connectivity for Juken in order to increase network speed, improve availability, and decrease cost, and has also supplied and installed new technology as the network has expanded. But the underlying non-stop design remains effective and ensures Juken’s business is not compromised due to communication failures.
