Written by Alex Wall, IT Manager A P Valves.
SECTOR: Sports Equipment Design and Manufacture
Company: AP Valves and Ambient Pressure Diving
For over 37 years A.P.Valves has led the way in diving - innovating, designing and manufacturing equipment of the highest quality. This was acknowledged recently when we were the only manufacturer in the world to have no less than three of our dive products voted into the Top 10 of Diver Magazine’s Top 25 “very best in current dive-gear” poll. We were proud to see the evergreen BUDDY Commando voted in at #3 - the only buoyancy control device to make the Top 10.
Since its foundation in 1969 the company has grown at a phenomenal rate, from a small family business to our current position as UK market leaders and selling in over 50 countries worldwide: supplying sport & professional divers, military, search & rescue and coastguards world-wide.
The Story: NCI Technologies contribution to our success
NCI introduced Small Business Server 2003 into our company in order to update our peer to peer network structure, improve data management and communication within our company. However the benefits from the Server and software were much more far reaching than we had expected and the implementation and support effortless due to NCI’s casual but professional approach to our needs.
Our staff can access their company emails and files from home or away using any PC with access to the internet, securely. It has also provided internet access and email use to staff that previously could not have access, enabling us to network existing and new machinery within our factory and benefit from secure offsite backup with NCI which has given us immense peace of mind.
Since the introduction of the Server, we have subsequently used NCI to re wire our premises, implement new virus protection and spam filtering software packages and for ongoing support that is tailored to our specific requirements making us more efficient in what we do.