Cranfield is Britain’s only university exclusively catering to postgraduate students, with its main campus located in the county of Bedfordshire, within the ‘arc’ between the cities of Oxford and Cambridge. A world-leading specialized university, Cranfield is ranked among the top 30 universities worldwide for Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering, according to the QS World University Rankings, with 88% of Cranfield’s research is recognized as world-leading. Focusing on industries such as energy, manufacturing and environmental sciences, the university’s IT systems are pivotal in allowing students to get hands-on with real-world industry applications and business software, tackling the challenges they will face in their careers.
The university’s alumni include leaders at world-renowned British organizations including Rolls Royce and Hotel Chocolat. With two campuses – one in the county of Bedfordshire and another at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom at Shrivenham – the university has a long history of applied research focusing on cutting-edge technology, since its foundation as the Royal College of Aeronautics in 1946. Like many higher education institutions, Cranfield sought a strategic, cost-effective solution to provide the high-performance workstations essential for its students.
Steve Lawson, Desktop and Second Line Support, Service Delivery Team Leader, Cranfield University explained, “We support a wide range of industrial and engineering applications on all our workstations – from computational fluid dynamics to aircraft design modelling. These applications require stable, high-performance hardware.”
Faster, better, stronger
Turning to Lenovo was a natural step for Cranfield’s IT department, which has relied on Lenovo technology for more than a decade. Lawson describes Lenovo workstations as “rock solid” in terms of stability and reliability, and ‘impressive’ in terms of performance. An additional positive has been Lenovo’s customer support teams Lawson said, “Any problems we do face are fixed quickly. We’ve been very happy with the partnership over the years.”
Cranfield had several key considerations. The university needed high performance, stable, and reliable devices, and wanted to minimise up-front capital costs. Sustainability was also an important consideration for Cranfield, which is ranked among the top 40 universities worldwide for actions supporting the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 17 (focused on global sustainability partnerships).
To ensure performance keeps pace with the demands of the latest industry applications, Cranfield’s IT department regularly refreshes its student lab workstations. Recently, they upgraded to high-performance Lenovo ThinkStation P2 Tower workstations. Faced with a generation of devices nearing end-of-life, the university adopted Lenovo TruScale Device as a Service (DaaS) to avoid a large upfront investment. Instead, they shifted to a subscription-based procurement model with regular payments. This included additional Lenovo services, such as Lenovo CO2 Offset Services, which help the university proactively account for the future emissions of its devices from the outset and offset them by supporting climate action projects verified by United Nations, Gold Standard®, and Climate Action Reserve. By integrating sustainability considerations into its procurement strategy, Cranfield ensures it maintains powerful graphics and processing capabilities while accounting for each device’s average lifetime emissions.
Suzie Chadwick, Head of Service (IT) at Cranfield, said: “Budgets are tight in the higher education sector. Lenovo TruScale DaaS enables us to spread the cost of the devices over their life cycle with only a small upfront cost. With this latest TruScale DaaS arrangement, we have more direct contact with Lenovo and are taking advantage of more support services that wrap around the hardware than we did in the past. Our relationship with Lenovo is getting stronger and stronger.”
Transformative impact
The benefits were immediate and measurable. Students reported a substantial improvement in workstation performance, with Lenovo’s high-speed and powerful hardware transforming their experience. The suite of extra service offered along with Lenovo TruScale DaaS as part of Lenovo Digital Workplace Solutions (DWS) also helped IT staff reduce downtime and ensure problems were dealt with rapidly. The university also benefits from Lenovo Premier Support, providing Cranfield with direct access to Lenovo experts, next-business-day repairs, extended warranty upgrades, and Lenovo Thinkshield security software.
Cranfield was also able to offset the estimated emissions of their devices by opting for Lenovo CO2 Offset Services across the entire lifecycle of the workstations. This supported seven third-party verified climate action projects around the world. The university has offset 750.5 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent across the devices’ lifecycle, including manufacturing, shipping, usage, and disposal.
Steve Lawson noted, “Users can really feel the difference. We’ve had very positive feedback, with users reporting that applications are running faster.”
Abdul Hakim, Executive Director, Digital Workplace Solutions at Lenovo, said, “Lenovo TruScale DaaS provides universities like Cranfield with a customizable, cost-effective solution to manage their technology needs while simplifying complex IT demands. By bundling hardware, software, and services into a single, predictable monthly fee with flexible payment options, it reduces the burden on internal IT teams and eliminates the barriers of upfront costs and complexity.”
The model supports scalability to meet varying demands, ensuring consistent, reliable access to quality devices that enhance productivity and the user experience for both faculty and students. This empowers universities to focus on their core educational activities, shaping the leaders of tomorrow while leveraging state-of-the-art technology for real-world innovation and success.”
A foundation for success
Cranfield’s IT department now spends a great deal less time “running around labs troubleshooting,” Chadwick says, enabling the university to focus on delivering the real-world, hands-on experience with industry software which is so crucial for its postgraduate students. With stable and reliable workstations, students are equipped to conduct cutting-edge research and are prepared to become the industry leaders of tomorrow.
Suzie Chadwick, added, “With Lenovo TruScale DaaS, we have equipped our student labs with the latest in workstation technology. This enables students to use industry-standard applications and run real-world research, preparing them to succeed in the world of work.”
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