The computer workstation service offered by RIT is a modern, standardized service. "It is centrally managed, and the devices meet the standard - modern and high-quality," says RIT’s project manager Rasmus Uusküla. "In the case of some new institutions, it happens that we have to replace the entire computer park with new or equivalent equipment," he adds.
"This consolidation was interesting even for our experienced specialists - we found old laptops that our younger colleagues had never seen before. Although they were no longer in daily use, they still caused quite a bit of excitement," describes Uusküla.
"Some employees now have computers that are about twenty years newer, and fax machines are no longer present in the work environment. The most important result of the consolidation is that the Estonian State Fleet now has a stable and modern IT partner," Uusküla highlights the benefits of the change.
According to Anu Angerjas, Director of the Estonian State Fleet Support Services Department, the launch of the new organization required the takeover of IT systems and assets from various organizations. "The consolidation revealed outdated technologies and software that had previously been overlooked or simply forgotten. For the Estonian State Fleet, unifying IT systems was a significantly more complex and time-consuming process than starting from scratch. Throughout this process, it was crucial that work did not stop," notes Angerjas.
"Today, we are at a technologically advanced level across the entire organization, which gives us better opportunities to do our work more efficiently and to more confidently face the ever-growing cybersecurity issues. The use of unified and standardized technologies across the organization significantly improves our internal process and communication understanding, which in turn reduces incidents and problems," says the Director of the Estonian State Fleet Support Services Department.
Lessons from the sea
"The integration of the Estonian State Fleet into RIT's service offered many insights and lessons, as both institutions are among the youngest in the country. The collaboration between these still-developing institutions provided us with valuable feedback on how to develop processes, what additional services to mediate or offer, so that future consolidations can be even smoother," says Uusküla.
"Providing our service to ships is certainly a challenge and an exciting learning opportunity," adds Uusküla. "Many things are different at sea than usual. For example, continuous support is extremely important for the Estonian State Fleet. Additionally, one must consider slightly unconventional solutions, such as securing a monitor in a stormy sea," he explains.
"In the future, we know better how to prepare users as well. For example, we can create a guide on how everyone can remove unnecessary files and other digital junk from their work computer," Uusküla provides an example and adds that users should also be explained that not all browser settings, such as bookmarks, transfer automatically. "User experience is very important to us, and we place a lot of emphasis on making guides accessible, so even people less familiar with IT can easily restore familiar settings on their new computer," says Uusküla.
One of the goals of the computer workstation service is to reduce costs through standard solutions. "The experience of consolidating the Estonian State Fleet showed that we should still take into account the peculiarities of each client more and be more flexible. For example, our standard printers are too large for ships, or computer mice are too light, which might cause them to ‘float’ around the ship," the project manager provides examples of client-specific needs.
