The surge in online shopping (a massive 129% increase following lockdown*) and the Christmas period looming is having a major impact on warehouse fulfilment. For warehousing and logistics storing, transporting, and delivering goods with a fast turnaround has put even more pressure on warehousing operations to be seamless. Getting the most out of your warehouse has never been more important as downtime in the warehouse means a cost to the business.
However, modern warehouse productivity is helped using automated systems, handheld devices, on-board computers, and robotics. These systems help eliminate errors and maximise fulfilment rates. But to increase the efficiency of your entire warehouse your technology needs seamless, uninterrupted connectivity to your wireless network. If your warehouse is hiring extra staff for the holiday period and thus adding more devices to your network, do you have the wireless infrastructure in place with the scalability required to support the extra workload? If not, this will dramatically reduce productivity. During busy times, picking is vital for completing multiple orders in the quickest amount of time. And if your warehouse isn’t operating at full efficiency because your WiFi slows under the weight of the extra traffic, delays in your supply chain will happen and this will impact your business.
Your WiFi needs to be run like your warehouse, i.e. you never want to run out of capacity. If new stock arrives you need space in the warehouse to store it. So if new devices are connecting to your WiFi you need the capacity for those devices to connect without reducing performance.
At busy times, you also have to think about the type of stock you might be storing as planning for a different range of materials is important as these can interfere with radio frequency and can cause the WiFi signal to weaken. You also need to plan for obstructions and coverage and minimise interference with correct access point (AP) positioning. Whatever type of racking or stock you have high-performance connectivity throughout your warehouse can be achieved with sophisticated adaptive antenna technology which directs the WiFi connection at the devices that need it.
If you do happen to encounter a problem with your warehouse WiFi and the devices connecting to it. Do you have the tools in place to quickly identify the cause of the problem and fix any issues on the fly? A well-designed, cloud-managed enterprise WiFi solution will provide you with all the tools you need to do this and ensure you’re back up and running as soon as possible.
Slow network connectivity means stopped scanners and with warehouse automation having greater importance during this gigantically busy time in e-Commerce, hyper-reliable warehouse WiFi isn’t just a ‘good to have’ it’s business critical.
At Redway Networks we are helping businesses prepare for the Christmas period by offering a free WiFi heat mapping survey to analyse your current WiFi and offer advice to help improve it so you can meet any anticipated device demand.
Contact us to find out more.
Internet Retailing 2020 *
Comments are closed.