Typical project · Quebec and Ontario
Wi-Fi and dock cameras for a warehouse that never closes
These are typical projects, described from the kind of work we do. They do not describe a named client or a specific building.
Scanners lose their connection at the end of the aisles, and when a pallet is disputed nobody can show what happened at the dock door. This is how both are put right in a building where the work never stops.
The situation: scanners that drop and disputes with no footage
The client is a distribution company whose warehouse runs day and night. Orders are picked with handheld scanners, the lift trucks carry terminals, and every lost connection means a walk back to where the signal returns and a transaction entered twice.
At the docks, trailers are loaded and unloaded at all hours. When a carrier disputes a damaged pallet or a short shipment, the company has nothing to show: the few existing cameras look at the parking lot, and their recorder is full after a few days.
What the first visit to the warehouse finds
- Access points placed for an empty buildingThe existing access points are spread evenly across the ceiling, far above the racking. Racks full of goods block the signal in the aisles.
- Scanners that hold on to a distant access pointThe handhelds stay connected to the first access point they met and drop instead of moving to a closer one.
- Cable runs at their limitThe far end of the building is too distant from the network room for copper, and there is no intermediate cabinet.
- Dock doors with strong backlightWith a door open in daylight, a camera facing it shows a white rectangle. The useful views are taken along the dock, not into the light.
What is designed, and why
The Wi-Fi and the cameras share the same cabinets and the same fibre, which is why they are designed together.
- Wi-Fi designed from a survey with the racks fullCoverage is measured in the aisles, at the height where the scanners are used, with the goods in place. Access points are placed and aimed along the aisles, and the plan comes from the measurements, not from the floor area.
- Roaming set for the devices in useThe network is configured for the scanners and lift-truck terminals the client already owns, then tried by walking and driving the routes with them.
- A fibre link to a cabinet at the far endAn intermediate cabinet fed by fibre brings every access point and camera within reach of a switch, and leaves room for the next extension of the racking.
- Cameras that settle a disputeEach dock door has a view along the dock that shows the trailer, the pallet and the handling, out of the backlight. The length of recording is set by the period in which the client's carriers file their claims.
- Separate networks for the operationScanners, cameras, office computers and visitors are on separate networks, so that a guest's phone never competes with a picking device.
How the work is sequenced without stopping a shift
No aisle is closed without the supervisor's agreement, and the old network stays on until the new one has been tried.
- A plan agreed with operations
The supervisor chooses the order of the zones and the hours: the quietest aisles first, the docks between two waves of trucks.
- Cabinet and fibre first
The intermediate cabinet and its fibre link are installed and tested before anything depends on them.
- Wi-Fi zone by zone
Access points are installed from a lift, one zone at a time, beside the old ones. Each zone is tried with the client's scanners before the old access points are switched off.
- Cameras dock by dock
Cameras are mounted and adjusted with the doors open and a trailer in place, so that the view is judged in real conditions, by day and by night.
- A last walk with the scanners
Coverage is measured again across the whole building and the results are compared with the design.
What is handed over
- The coverage map measured after installation, aisle by aisle
- The test results of the fibre link and of each copper cable
- The list of access points, switches and cameras, with their locations and labels
- Camera views named by dock door, and accounts for the people who review footage
- A short procedure for finding and exporting the footage of a shipment
- The network settings and the administrator access, in the client's name
Services involved
Industry
Other typical projects
- Entry panel and fobs in an occupied rental building
- Cameras, alarm and a radio link on a construction site
- Low-voltage package of a new mixed-use building
- A cut fibre backbone repaired and re-certified
- Leak detection with shut-off by riser in a condo building
- An office move on a fixed date: cabling, Wi-Fi, doors and phones
- Mobile coverage for two levels of underground parking
- Analogue cameras replaced by IP cameras across a group of stores
- Access control for an office building with several tenants
- Licence plate recognition at the gate of a logistics yard
- Audio and video for the meeting rooms of an office
- A network put back in order after a security incident
- An old alarm system replaced in a store with offices and a stockroom
A project like this starts with a walk through the aisles
Tell us the size of the building, the devices you use and where the connection drops. We measure the coverage with the racks as they are, look at the docks, then quote the Wi-Fi and the cameras together or separately. We reply in English or French.