Senior Aerospace Weston

Overview

Senior Aerospace Weston, a division of Senior plc UK, manufactures airfoils and air structures for single-aisle aircraft from its base in Lancashire. In response to the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the company sought to modernise its meeting infrastructure to support better connectivity and collaboration.

Challenge

Senior Aerospace Weston had identified the need to upgrade their meeting room space to support more flexible and collaborative ways of working. Their current meeting room technology was outdated, with faulty overhead projectors and inconsistent connectors, leading to an increase in help desk calls for audio visual equipment support. This made it difficult to plan and host meetings, especially as the organisation shifted to a hybrid working pattern. During meetings, it was difficult to include remote participants, as the room set up made it hard for remote attendees to hear or see the presenters or other attendees speaking.

Senior Aerospace Weston were aware they had a challenge but lacked the expertise to implement a solution that would meet their evolving needs. They turned to SCC.

Solution

Senior Weston Aerospace started working with SCC in 2023 to design a new meeting room solution which was tailored to fit their specific requirements. SCC delivered four Microsoft Teams Rooms: two of them were designed for conference-level capacity, and two smaller rooms accommodated up to five people. The solution also benefits from SCC Service support, with an annual health check ensuring the system remains up to date and reliable.

The new Teams Room solution is 100% self-managed which means the admin involved with the room management has greatly diminished. Users simply invite the room to their calls through Microsoft Outlook and receive an automatic notification on whether the room is available. Lee Corns, IT Manager at Senior Weston Aerospace said: “I think the key benefit from the Teams Rooms is a lack of admin. The Teams Rooms are 100% self-managed. There’s no involvement from anyone from an admin side of things, which is fantastic for us.”

The biggest challenge in user adoption for the new audio-visual solution was getting users to invite the meeting room to their meetings. This meant they regularly turned up to meetings and the room was either in use or they needed additional steps to connect to the screens in the room. To make this easier a simple guide was provided in each room, so users could just follow the guide and quickly connect.

Benefit

Upgrading their meeting room capabilities has transformed the way Senior Weston Aerospace plan and manage internal meetings and meetings with customers. It has significantly reduced the help desk tickets for connectivity issues. Users find the systems very self-intuitive and easy to use – they simply enter a room, click join on the panel, and they are in the meeting.

“I think probably the best thing I could say about [the Teams Rooms] is we’ve had a new MD come to the business and the first thing that they mentioned to me was how easy these rooms are to use. They’ve not seen this type of technology before, and they said they’re a real asset to the business.” – Lee Corns, IT Manager, Senior Aerospace Weston.

The meetings are now more interactive, with the high-quality cameras and microphones focusing on the current speaker in the room. This ensures remote participants have the same experience as those attending in person. As a result, the meetings are more focused and productive, enabling the team to quickly come together to address customer issues and requirements.