IT Manager
American Civil Constructors
American Civil Constructors (ACC) is one of the nation’s premier construction and maintenance companies. Its comprehensive services span multiple market segments including the Civil, Marine and Landscape industries. It’s a preeminent provider of road rehabilitation and paving services, freeway seismic retrofitting, bridge construction and repair, reservoir and culvert construction, sports field and golf course construction as well as commercial landscape construction and landscape management services. The firm works for a geographically diverse client base through operation hubs in Denver, Seattle, Dallas and San Francisco. Combining decades of experience with a passion for outstanding work, ACC brings an impressive track record of consistently delivering successful projects from Ketchikan, Alaska to New Orleans, Louisiana.
As the company was expanding to tap into new business opportunities, ACC was concerned about the stability, complexity and capability of its aging telecommunications system, which was comprised of multiple products from Mitel, Toshiba and others. Recognizing their system would need to meet the increasing demands of more users and support newer productivity-enhancing applications, ACC was concerned with:
• the growing burden and complexity of operating and maintaining disparate phone systems;
• the challenge of promoting and managing effective communications between multiple regional offices and field operations; and
• the unacceptable time and resources required to install or move phone extensions.
The company evaluated multiple technology alternatives and decided that the best path forward was to adopt a VoIP system. The flexibility of an IP PBX offers the ability to implement a range of applications like UC now and add future services when needed.
ACC worked with KineticWorks, a reseller in Denver, CO, to craft the Zultys solution. Six MX250 IP Phone Systems and two MX25s were installed along with Zultys phones. A MX250 was placed in their primary headquarters office in Lakewood, CO, which serves as a hub for two MX25 PSTN/SIP gateways in Broomfield, CO and Aurora, CO. The company also installed MX250 IP Phone Systems in Littleton, CO; Irving, TX; Seattle, WA; Martinez, CA; and Benicia, CA.
The company secured licenses for MXIE™ (the Zultys Unified Communications Client), fax, call record and other features. ACC also migrated much of its incoming/outgoing fax services to the new Zultys IP Phone System. The MX250s were grouped together into an MXnetwork configuration, providing complete company-wide UC including extension dialing, presence and chat services.
ACC also noticed that employees were increasingly using the MXIE UC client for multi-tasking and troubleshooting to resolve issues. Prior to MXIE, things were often a game of voicemail tag. The ability to contact someone at his or her desk by using Presence has been very helpful.
The Zultys solution allowed ACC to easily migrate from multiple, obsolete phone systems and upgrade to a single, cost-effective VoIP system offering seamless UC across multiple offices and regions. It also simplified the task of adding new users to the system as well as reduced the time and resources required to move users to another office. Fax costs dropped dramatically as a result of the new Zultys implementation.
ACC has come to rely heavily on Zultys’ MXIE UC client for intra-office communications through Presence and Instant Messaging, integrated email, voice messaging and easy call handling. One of the company’s key concerns has also been satisfied through the visual voicemail feature. Sales and operating staff can now quickly locate and act on time-sensitive messages as well as forward voice mails to others with a simple drag-and-drop action.
American Civil Constructors’ eight offices around the U.S. are connected together into a seamless UC system using MXnetwork for guaranteed service and survivability.