Imaging/Configuration server system

Okay, I am looking for a good and effective way to store and image harddrives, Im working in IT for a company and the issue is that each department requires different software, and instead of having an image for ever kind of system for each department what my goal is, is to have base images for each system, and then a configuration server that'll configure that system with all the software I select for that system, does anyone know of a way to do this?

 

Maybe usae a base image and something like Installpad.

http://www.installpad.com/

 

Unfortunately install pad seems a little stripped down for what I need, I have a budget for this so I don't NEED a free program, but it'd be nice. Also network traffic is an issue so they way it'll be working is a direct gigabit connection from the server to any number of computers being imaged in question, and not on the company's network.

edit: If it comes to it I guess I could configure installpad to do what I need it to do, it'll just take a very long time, and there isn't any built in licensing option available.

 

InstallPad doesn't work for my needs, I jsut tested it out isntalling ad-aware locally, and well, it took like 4 minutes for it to download that install, but I was using file:// protocol to install it from a local directory, and I need something that'll be faster and more efficient.