Limbach Facility Services Selecting Riverbed

Riverbed Technology announced that the largest privately held mechanical contractor and service firm in the United States, Limbach Facility Services, is using Riverbed WAN optimization solutions, allowing its employees to quickly access large files for the design and development of new projects. Since installing the Riverbed Steelhead appliances in the Detroit Metro area, Limbach Facility Services has improved its application response times from 3-12 minutes to 1-3 minutes, resulting in real-time collaboration for employees working on design drawings from remote locations.

Since its inception in 1901, Limbach Facility Services has grown into a $350 million national mechanical contractor and service firm, consistently ranked as part of Engineering News-Record’s Top Specialty Contractors since 1964. The company has employees in 11 cities across the U.S, including Ann Arbor, MI; Boston, MA; Columbus, OH; Detroit, MI; Los Angeles, CA; Palm Springs, CA; Philadelphia, PA; Pittsburgh, PA; Orlando, FL; Washington, DC; and Tampa, FL.

Limbach provides mechanical and sheet metal contracting services from the inception of a project to the completion and maintenance of a newly-built facility. Limbach employees use AutoCAD when developing drawings for steel and metal piping, and Meridian for CAD file management. To obtain access to CAD files, detailers at remote sites used to wait anywhere from 3-12 minutes to pull a file from a remote server and conduct the check-in and check-out process for large CAD design files. On an average worksite, the company has anywhere from three to five CAD detailers accessing files back and forth to where the Meridian file server is located.

"Slow application response time was affecting the productivity of our designers, forcing us to look for a solution. Our attempt at adding bandwidth didn’t do the trick. We realized we needed speed – not space or extra bandwidth – to access the applications we use most," said Aaron McCarthy, IT manager of Limbach. Limbach began looking for a WAN optimization solution to accelerate frequently used applications such as AutoCAD – specifically CAD Mech and CAD Duct software from TSI – and Lotus Notes.

Working closely with ModernTech, a reseller of Riverbed WAN Optimization solutions, Limbach learned more about the Steelhead appliances and participated in a three-month evaluation. For Limbach’s small IT team, the solution was easy to install and simple to maintain. Upon implementation of the Steelhead appliances, Limbach’s CAD detailers immediately began touting how fast accessing applications had become. Limbach experienced an application performance improvement up to three times.

Since each project is allotted a certain amount of CAD drawing hours, the ability to reduce the time a CAD detailer utilizes to get a drawing on his screen and start working saves Limbach money. "A three times improvement in speed does wonders for our business. We knew this solution would pay for itself just for the increased speed in accessing CAD drawings, because we would have three to five people working off site needing to collaborate in real time," said McCarthy.

The deployment of the Riverbed solution has enabled Limbach to improve delivery of services to its customers. "We can now deliver results to our customers at a faster pace. Since construction is very time sensitive, this product fits us very well," added McCarthy. Based on its success, Limbach plans to deploy Steelhead appliances at all 11 of its sites.