Warehousing can be a competitive, low-margin business, and in today's turbulent economy it is especially important for warehouses to deliver a high level of performance while keeping costs low. Your customers are increasingly in a position to demand accuracy, timeliness and zero damage for every order, offering significant rewards for consistent delivery of "perfect orders". Today's warehouse managers are therefore investing in cost-effective processes and technologies that improve accuracy as well as attract and retain customers. One of the most critical of these is in the area of mobility.
Mobility in the warehouse can dramatically improve your productivity, resource utilization and inventory management. Providing "anytime, anywhere" flexibility, workers replace paper-based reporting and inventory systems with real-time order fulfillment on handheld devices. With the warehouse unified by a single wireless network, worker and manager productivity gains from the assurance of accurate, timely updates received for every order WI-FI NETWORK SOLUTION FOR WAREHOUSE PAGE 2/8 picked from the shelves. This level of visibility also improves resource utilization through just-in-time inventory levels that allow you to stock products based on demand. Reduced inventory lowers capital expenditures and staffing costs, while allowing you to provide better service to customers with fewer out-of-stocks. Production lines can also be more rapidly replenished to avoid costly manufacturing delays. New WiFi enabled handheld devices pose serious challenges to large warehouse environments. Unlike laptops, the orientation of mobile devices constantly changes making it harder for WiFi systems to deliver a rock solid signal. Traditional omni-directional antennas were never developed to deal with this type of moving client and cannot properly adapt to changing orientation of clients. This results in dropped connections and erratic WiFi performance.
Running Ethernet cable can be a huge challenge for pre-existing structures, and warehouses are no exception. With WLANs quickly becoming the preferred network backbone for application and device connectivity. Our solution is based on the technologies from Altai Backhaul (5Ghz) or Cisco Clean Air which are able to create the Spectrum-aware, selforganizing and self-healing are the logical choice for extending wireless connectivity across buildings, eliminating the need and additional expense of pulling CAT5 cabling to every Access Point (AP). These technologies utilize best path selection and interference avoidance techniques to ensure reliable and ubiquitous Wi-Fi coverage, which is essential for RF-challenged warehousing environments.
Wireless-enabled handheld devices pose serious connectivity challenges within warehouse environments. Unlike laptops, the orientation of mobile devices is constantly changing, making it harder for Wi-Fi systems to deliver a rock solid signal. Traditional omnidirectional antennas were never developed to deal with this type of mobile client, often resulting in dropped connections and unstable Wi-Fi performance. Our solution is designed on the adaptive antenna technology which selects the best signal path for every packet, even as devices move about or as warehouse configurations change. This patented antenna array automatically detects the client devices and sends signals that are vertically or horizontally polarized — remembering each client and its location. The result is consistent and predictable performance you can count on, particularly in warehousing environments that are in a constant state of flux.
Normally, the warehouse’s IT team is not specialized for the WiFi management, so the simplifying the configuration & management is seen as advanced point for any WiFi solution. The Cisco Wireless Lan Controller system is the industry’s simplest WLAN system to configure and deploy. It offers one of the most advanced feature sets without the cost and complexity typically associated with high-end Wi-Fi systems. Configured in minutes and deployed in hours, Cisco Wireless Lan Controller system use an intuitive Web-based wizard. Once configured, APs are simply plugged into a power source or PoE and selfprovisioned by automatically discovering the controller or Wi-Fi management system. APs can be deployed in standalone mode or as part of a centrally managed, full-featured WLAN. The controllers are deployed out of the datapath — eliminating performance bottlenecks or the possibility of becoming a single point of failure.
To save time and recurring monthly broadband charges, warehouses can use long-range smart Wi-Fi bridges. Over distances of 1 to 8 miles, new 802.11n 5GHz Wi-Fi bridges deliver from 50 to 200 Mbps of high-capacity broadband connections into warehouse facilities—saving potentially tens of thousands of dollars every year from eliminating costly fixed line connections to connect remote sites.
Traditional dipole omnidirectional antennas are not able to alter the Wi-Fi signal path, thus more APs are required to cover a given area. New technologies such as Ruckus changed the playing field with its own patented, high-gain, directional adaptive antenna array integrated into every AP, creating an unmatched wire-like performance with 2 to 4x the coverage range, which on average requires 30 to 50% fewer access points. This translates into lower infrastructure OPEX and CAPEX and a faster return on investment. By employing dual-band 802.11n indoor and outdoor access points, warehouses can now have an industrial strength Wi-Fi infrastructure that delivers consistent performance everywhere, ensuring zero down time or diminished productivity.
Management and administration of a wireless LAN system has never been simpler— whether onsite or remote. No complex or hard to understand menus full of confusing options. Instead, administrators simply point and click through an intuitive, graphical user interface, purposely designed for simplicity. A customizable, widget-based dashboard provides a complete at-a-glance view of the system with detailed information about system usage, recent user activity, most active clients, most frequented access points, rogue devices and much more. And detailed statistics provides real-time information for troubleshooting. Perfect for warehouse environments with already busy IT staff.
2x to 4x coverage improvement through integrated long-range, high-gain arrays and Altai’s smart antenna technology.
The adaptive multi-antenna technology with client feedback ensures consistent, reliable, and fast connections to the end client.
The Meshing technology allows for easy meshing to endure coverage without laying new cabling in difficult to deploy environments.
Checkbox provisioning in the controller can communicate with the APs to track RFIDs for your supply chain management.
With dynamic PSK, you can be assured of a highly secure network without the need for security expertise or extensive IT resources.
The adaptive antenna technology has many antenna arrays which allows for complete connectivity.
Indoor and outdoor APs can be managed remotely as one through a single interface.
Deploy APs as stand alone or with the controller; controllers can be onsite or offsite and managed remotely.
For warehouses with limited IT resources, the graphical user interface is easy to use and understand.
For the Cold Storage, the Industrial AP which has built in heaters will ensure the reliability even under the harshest conditions.
