Case Studies

How Infrastructure Automation Improved Technology Engineering Operations

Cover for "How Infrastructure Automation Improved Technology Engineering Operations."

The Client 

A global technology company is helping shape the future of augmented reality, virtual reality, wearables, and next-generation computing experiences. Its engineering teams rely on highly specialized lab environments to support hardware development, prototype validation, testing, and research activities across multiple locations. 

The Challenge 

As innovation efforts accelerated, the organization needed a more scalable and efficient approach to supporting the infrastructure behind those engineering environments. Behind every breakthrough product is an operational foundation that allows engineers to build, test, and iterate quickly. 

As engineering demand increased, the client faced growing complexity across its technical lab environments. Infrastructure setup often required significant manual coordination, visibility into environment readiness varied across locations, and support teams were frequently pulled into repetitive requests and reactive troubleshooting. 

The scale was already significant: 14 LabNet VLANs spanning 56 active physical labs across five global sites, supporting approximately 40 engineers directly across engineering organizations including AI Devices, MR Optical Engineering, Failure Analysis, EE Support, and LabOps. 

The challenge went beyond simply maintaining lab infrastructure to improving engineering operations by creating a repeatable support model that could accommodate growing demand while increasing consistency, responsiveness, and visibility across environments. 

Several critical questions emerged: 

  • How could infrastructure setup become more repeatable? 
  • How could support teams identify issues earlier? 
  • How could environment readiness be measured and communicated consistently? 
  • How could new environments be supported without adding operational complexity? 
  • How could repetitive support work be automated or shifted toward self-service? 

The operating environment was becoming leaner at the same time. The client needed a way to expand infrastructure support without proportionally increasing resources or sacrificing service. 

The Solution 

Insight Global partnered with the client’s lab infrastructure engineering organization to build a more efficient operating model for supporting highly specialized engineering environments.to build a more efficient operating model for supporting highly specialized engineering environments. 

Rather than simply adding support capacity, the team focused on reducing the amount of work that required manual intervention in the first place. The engagement combined infrastructure automation with self-service capabilities, proactive monitoring, documentation, standardized processes, and clearer governance. 

The solution included: 

  • Infrastructure automation and standardized scripting 
  • Repeatable provisioning and onboarding processes 
  • Device health dashboards and operational reporting 
  • Proactive monitoring and alerting capabilities 
  • Environment readiness validation and checks 
  • Device compliance management 
  • Self-service troubleshooting resources 
  • Standardized runbooks, triage processes, and escalation paths 
  • Remote infrastructure support across multiple global locations 
  • Ongoing infrastructure maintenance and engineering support 

That foundation allowed support coverage to expand from three sites to five, a 67% increase, including the addition of New York and Fremont, CA. 

In New York, the team supported two VLANs across six physical lab spaces and conducted an onsite engagement to address device compliance challenges, align stakeholders, and establish clearer ownership and escalation paths. Fremont was supported through a new lab buildout with VLAN extension from Sunnyvale, CA. 

The team also established remote support models for New York City; Redmond, CA; and Taipei, Taiwan and deployed site-specific device health dashboards to give local teams greater visibility into device health and help identify potential issues more efficiently. 

Outcomes and Impact 

The results became stronger even as demand increased. 

Across 102 tracked requests from 40 engineers supporting 56 labs across five global sites, the team: 

  • Expanded site coverage by 67%, from three supported sites to five.  
  • Absorbed 58% more request volume as engineering demand increased.  
  • Achieved an overall median resolution time of 1.05 days. During the reporting period, median resolution time improved from 4.02 days in the first half to 0.73 days in the second half, an 82% reduction.  
  • Achieved a 93.1% closure rate, closing 95 of 102 tracked requests.  
  • Delivered a 5.2-hour median time to first response.  
  • Closed 49.5% of requests the same day.  
  • Closed 68% within seven days and 88% within 30 days.  
  • Reduced shared storage provisioning and access requests to approximately 30 minutes through automation. 
  • Expanded support while operating with one fewer service line. 

The combination demonstrates the larger impact on engineering operations: support demand increased while resolution times fell and geographic coverage expanded, without adding support resources. 

How We Changed the Game 

The biggest change was how infrastructure support was delivered. A strong example was shared-drive access and password retrieval. Previously, users contacted the Lab Infrastructure team directly for credentials and setup instructions. An engineer then manually retrieved credentials and shared the necessary documentation. Each request could require multiple touches from the support team. 

Insight Global helped turn that process into a self-service workflow. Once a request was approved, the workflow automatically provided setup instructions and self-service access, while users could retrieve their own credentials through the Secret Access tool. 

What had required repeated engineer involvement became a zero-manual-touch workflow. Shared storage provisioning and access requests ultimately reached a median resolution time of approximately 30 minutes. 

The team applied the same approach to other infrastructure workflows. For shared-drive access, device compliance had previously required individual remediation, with VLAN-wide exceptions sometimes used as temporary workarounds. The team standardized an SMB proxy approach supported by setup scripts and documented runbooks. SMB proxy infrastructure ultimately expanded from one server to three. 

Self-service troubleshooting documentation also gave users a way to resolve common issues independently rather than relying on the Lab Infrastructure team for every question. 

And where no standardized lab infrastructure runbook or escalation process had previously existed, the team established a comprehensive framework for triage, escalation, and support. That framework also created a foundation for a potential future AI-guided support experience. 

Together, these improvements helped move infrastructure support away from repetitive manual intervention toward a more standardized operating model designed to support growing engineering demand. 

The Insight Global Difference 

Improving engineering operations doesn’t always require adding headcount to meetd emand. For this engagement, Insight Global combined technical talent, consulting expertise, and hands-on delivery to help the client rethink the operating model behind its lab environments.  

Instead of treating automation, documentation, monitoring, and support as separate activities, the team used them together to reduce manual work and make support easier to expand. 

That approach became especially important when budget constraints reduced the delivery model from three service lines to two. Through infrastructure automation, self-service capabilities, standardized processes, and clearer escalation paths, the team absorbed growing demand while expanding support across additional locations. 

What emerged wasn’t simply additional support capacity. It was a more mature operational foundation designed to keep pace with the client’s engineering needs. 

How We Did It 

Automation and Standardization 

Built repeatable workflows, scripts, and self-service processes to eliminate repetitive manual work and make common infrastructure services easier to deliver consistently. 

Visibility and Monitoring 

Developed dashboards, alerts, reporting mechanisms, and monitoring capabilities that improved visibility into infrastructure health and device readiness for support teams and local stakeholders. 

Documentation and Enablement 

Created runbooks, provisioning documentation, troubleshooting guidance, and self-service resources to reduce reliance on institutional knowledge and direct engineer intervention. 

Global Infrastructure Operations 

Supported provisioning, device compliance, system readiness, infrastructure maintenance, and engineering environments across 56 labs and five global sites. 

Areas of Expertise 

Our People Approach 

Technology challenges aren’t solved by technology alone. 

Success required lab infrastructure specialists, optical engineering teams, device teams, failure analysis teams, operational leaders, and lab managers working together to improve how support was delivered. Insight Global helped establish consistent processes and clearer ownership while using automation and self-service capabilities to reduce the repetitive work that required direct engineering intervention. 

Our expertise in technical implementation and talent also gives us a deep understanding of the specialized skills required to support complex tech environments. Combined with consulting and delivery capabilities, our expertise allows us to help clients improve how the work itself gets done. 

For this client, the result was a more reliable support structure that allowed infrastructure operations to keep pace with growing engineering demand. 

Ready to Elevate Your Business? 

Improving complex operations doesn’t always mean adding more resources. As this engagement demonstrates, the right combination of specialized talent, technical expertise, automation, and operational improvements can help organizations support greater demand while creating a more efficient foundation for growth. 

Insight Global is a talent, consulting, and AI company that helps organizations turn complex business and technology challenges into measurable outcomes. Whether you need one specialist, a dedicated team, or a partner to deliver a larger program, we bring together the people, technical expertise, and delivery capabilities needed to move the work forward. 

From modernizing enterprise IT operations and engineering environments to improving workflows, building technical teams, and putting AI to work, we meet you where you are and adapt the engagement to what comes next. 

Ready to improve your engineering operations? Talk to our team about the people, technology, and delivery model that can help you get there. 

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