BACKGROUND
Located in the heart of Central Florida, Ravago’s Orlando Headquarter is a 75,000 square foot facility home to over 250 employees who support their Belgium parent company of over 5,000 employees worldwide, in distribution, sale compounding and recycling plastic. In spite of being a fast-growing multinational company, Ravago insists on maintaining a family culture and does so by promoting close interaction between their employees. In order to sustain their high level of employee interaction, Ravago needed an office redesign that would both encourage and facilitate unified employee collaboration throughout their Orlando facility. Ravago’s capacity for unified communications and for providing collaborative workspace was limited due to an overly complicated system. Because of this, office space wasn’t being utilized, and IT personnel were required to assist in conference calls, presentations and everyday meetings. ZIO was contracted as the technology provider, to design, install and support an overall solution to better facilitate a collaborative working environment.
CHALLENGE
As Ravago began to explain how their employees and “end-users” intended on using the re-designed workspace, ZIO began understanding the complexities of their needs. From meeting rooms with videoconferencing capabilities to boardrooms with automated wireless presentation, Ravago needed the ability to walk into any one of these room and use it instinctually, without ever having to think about the technology involved. This however, was not the case. For Ravago this meant IT personnel were required, room scheduling conflicts occurred, co-workers weren’t sharing ideas, and company resources were ultimately being wasted. The challenge was designing a complex system that met all of Ravago’s needs while adhering to the easy-to-operate and simplistic demands of staff and employees, who don’t possess the same technical skills as their IT department.
SOLUTION
ZIO’s solution was to create a system that anyone could use as easily as they could operate their own iPad or smartphone device. The entire installation consisted of modernizing eight conference rooms within their facility. Along with VTC, TC, AV, control systems and motorized shades, digital door signage was also installed outside each room with room scheduling capabilities to prevent future scheduling conflicts. Each room is plug-and-play, meaning a particular room function only requires one to plug their device into a retractable cable, and the rest is programmed to boot-up automatically. Inductively charged wall-mounted iPads operate as master controls for everything in the room and the user interfaces were custom designed to resemble Apple technology with recognizable icons and graphics for easy navigation.
RESULTS
When Ravago released the re-designed spaces to their team, the collaborative environment grew significantly, causing an upturn for employee interaction. There are no longer room scheduling conflicts and there is now space available that fosters collaboration. Ravago wanted simplicity, and that’s what they got. They wanted to be able to walk into any one of their meeting rooms or collaborative spaces and be able to use it instinctually, and that’s what they got. The outcome for Ravago is unparalleled to their previous system. Applying the “executive simple” solution enhanced their workplace for employees in a very short amount of time. Prior to ZIO’s integration, their technology was limiting their ability to provide efficient collaborative space due to its complicated system. However today, employees can walk into any room and use it as it was intended, without thinking of anything but the meeting at hand.