Honda gets homeworkers connected

Honda is gearing up to allow easier teleworking

Car and motorcycle manufacturer Honda has deployed a new networking solution aimed at promoting home working among its field-based area managers and other key personnel.

The company teamed up with system integrator Timico for the project.

Honda’s new networking solution will allow 160 employees to work more flexibly and securely.

The company said the solution will save money by reducing travel costs for its staff. It has spent about £180,000 on each of two projects and expects a 25 per cent saving in terms of cost over a three-year period, compared with the company’s previous supplier.

Timico has also migrated Honda’s dealer network onto its fully managed secure private wide area network (PWAN), and has provided the car maker with a fully managed ADSL connection and Cisco router at each of its 135 dealer sites.

“Combining our line rental and broadband services as part of Timico’s managed homeworker solution, has helped us significantly reduce our costs,” explained Paul Kidd, infrastructure implementation manager at Honda.

“The new routers mean our teleworkers can connect wirelessly at home – this gives them access to all our systems so they can work as effectively as they do in the office. Another plus point is that Timico has agreed that all our teleworker connections will be automatically migrated to the faster ADSL 2+ service as soon as it becomes available in each area," he added.

As part of the project, Honda has been provided with a secure customer portal. This helps Honda manage teleworker house moves and dealer changes, and allows the company to track orders and hardware deliveries, as well as allowing it to view invoices and billing data online.

The installation of a single managed PWAN to connect the majority of the company’s dealership sites brings a number of security benefits, such as IP VPN connectivity, centrally hosted and managed resilient firewalls, proactive network monitoring and reporting, Timico said.

In addition, Timico will offer 24/7 technical support and management and configuration of Honda’s existing Cisco hardware.

Honda cites Timico’s ability to take on the management and reconfiguration of its existing Cisco hardware, which has helped with managing costs and limiting the environmental impact of redundant hardware, as the main reason it chose the company.

Each of Honda’s dealership sites has a link to the Timico MPLS cloud, which is kept separate from any general internet traffic.

“There is an element of risk in any migration to a new service provider, however Timico’s project management team and support personnel have made this rollout one of the smoothest we have had,” added Kidd.