wow seems a lot of issues. seems a long time since we have max crashing on us. we are max based using vray render engine and of course photoshop post work.
not sure what the secret is but keeping very clean organised files is a must. we use very little plugins as they continually update and change and cause issues, so unless its a must have plugin, we tend not to use.
with 350 employees the opportunity to pull in the power of the top 10% machines would be ideal.
from personal experience, learning from crashes and gaining such experience is probably the way out of the situation, getting a good understanding of why something crashes seems vital to going forward, or get hold of an experienced consultant or employee to work with