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Background:
 Superior Essex is a global leader in the design,
manufacture and supply of wire and cable
products. We are the world's largest producer of
magnet wire, also known as winding wire, an
insulated copper or aluminum conductor used by
major original equipment manufacturers and
distributors. In North America, we are the
industry leader in outside plant copper
communications wire and cable products. We also
manufacture and supply fiber optic cables and
premises copper cables.
Superior Essex operates 26 manufacturing
facilities in the United States, Mexico, France,
Germany, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom,
Portugal and China. We have more than 4,400
employees working around the world to supply the
quality products that are essential to the
operation of a wide variety of everyday
household items and critical to day-to-day
business operations.
The Challenge:
Superior Essex (SE) has a very competent,
resourceful and well trained internal technology
staff. This technology staff is well equipped to
handle Superior Essex’ technology planning and
day-to-day infrastructure support needs.
Occasional, Superior Essex will seek the
expertise of ENS consultants to assist them with
background technical information or project
implementation design. Recently, ENS was
contacted by Superior Essex to assist with
merging the Fort Wayne operation’s Microsoft
Active Directory (AD) forest into the AD forest
of the Atlanta, Georgia division. ENS was
engaged to determine the steps necessary for
this migration and produce a consulting document
that outlined these steps along with time
estimates and potential costs.
The Solution:
ENS consulted with Superior Essex’s technology
staff in Fort Wayne, Indiana and Atlanta, George
to familiarize itself with the company’s
environment. In the process ENS gathered
information about server hardware and software,
relevant application configurations, workstation
operating systems and application configuration,
workstation deployment procedures and LAN and
WAN infrastructure.
Following the initial information gathering
process and a review of the documentation
provided by Superior Essex, ENS researched the
applications utilized by the company to
determine the impact of the AD forest merger on
their continued operation. When this research
was complete, ENS produced documentation
outlining the steps required to merge the AD
information, server applications, workstations
and their respective applications, and any other
relevant technology resources. A list of
hardware and software licensing required for the
project was also detailed. Finally, ENS prepared
a timeline and labor estimates for each phase of
the merger process, along with the technical
expertise required of those carrying out the
tasks.
With this document, Superior Essex was able to
better understand the process that would be
required and the impact on their business
environment. Specifically, this consulting
engagement allowed Superior Essex insight into
potential down time related to specific phases,
associated costs and the relevant costs to
ensure that they were in compliance with
Microsoft’s licensing requirements both during
and after the merge.
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