Case Study: Barnhardt Manufacturing Company achieves unified, secure communications and faster response times with 8x8

Century-Old Manufacturer Stays Agile and Responsive with 8x8

Barnhardt Manufacturing Company is a fourth-generation, family-owned cotton-fiber manufacturer operating eight U.S. facilities. Facing unreliable legacy telephony (Mitel) with frequent maintenance and capacity problems, security breaches that enabled fraudulent international calls, no analytics, and the need to connect office, manufacturing and very rural/mobile employees, the company sought a modern unified communications platform.

After a competitive evaluation Barnhardt implemented 8x8 Virtual Office in a phased rollout, integrating it with Salesforce and Microsoft email and deploying the 8x8 mobile app. The cloud solution delivered higher voice quality without MPLS, stronger security, real-time analytics for queue and performance management, faster response to change requests, a corporate directory for mobile users, and virtually no downtime—prompting positive user feedback and measurable operational improvements.

Barnhardt Manufacturing Company

Kevin O’Rourke

Chief Information Officer