An international supermarket chain, faced significant WiFi issues across several Regional Distribution Centres (DCs) in the UK and Ireland, primarily affecting picking operations.
The Remit
This international supermarket chain came to us experiencing significant picking issues caused by WiFi networks that had not been designed or optimised correctly for the environment. This was affecting the productivity of many of their distribution centres. Following an initial consultation, a comprehensive fault-finding survey was conducted, identifying key issues with the existing network. After analysing the data, a new WiFi design was implemented, optimised, and verified on-site, leading to improved connectivity and performance.
The Audit
Once the most up-to-date floorplans were sourced, our engineer loaded them into the WiFi mapping software and visited the site. In addition to walking the whole site,notes and photos were taken detailing the current AP locations and models, along with the CAB and switch locations. Photos of the whole site also help when moves or different antennas might be beneficial.
We also noted all devices used in the DC – as there are usually different models of Picking devices used & the WiFi chipsets & behaviours can vary massively.
The following day, the report was put together showing signal coverage and various other metrics that add up to good, indifferent, or just bad WiFi.This was then emailed to the customer IT team.
Once they had gone through the report, we scheduled a Teams call to discuss the findings in more detail. We showed the Ekahau file per AP and various other metrics that were causing their picking issues.
The Process
As we couldn’t significantly improve their current design, they requested a new design survey for the site. We used the same Vendor but different AP models and antennas. Once HQ approved the design and AP models, the design was rolled out alongside the current and switched over out-of-hours.
We then attended site to perform a complete optimisation and verification survey. This involves tweaking power & data rate settings to produce the most optimal WiFi network possible, then once happy, a complete site-wide verification is performed along with onsite device testing(do they connect & roam when they should, etc). Some tweaking here was also required on the device settings. Then a full report produced for the customer along with a follow up meeting.
The Results
The exact process was carried out at all their other existing DCs in the UK & Ireland, along with a new design for their brand-new flagship Distribution Centre.
A few sites are yet to be finished, but all should be completed by the end of December 24.
”After thorough checks, we can confirm that everything is running smoothly, with no issues reported since.
IT Team
