Retail & Distribution
Regional Distributor Cuts Network Outages by 95% and Deploys Modern Communications After Infrastructure Overhaul
95% fewer network outages
Monthly network incidents dropped from an average of 12 (mostly wireless drops and switch failures) to fewer than 1 in the first six months.
Inventory accuracy at 99.2%
Monthly inventory discrepancy dropped from 8–12% to under 1% within three months of the new scanning infrastructure going live.
$0 phone repair costs
The Nortel PBX repair and maintenance budget of approximately $6,000 per year was eliminated entirely by moving to cloud-based communications.
Real-time driver communication
Delivery drivers now use the RingCentral mobile app for dispatch, customer callbacks, and internal communication — all on the company phone system instead of personal devices.
The challenge
The company operated from a combined warehouse and office facility with network infrastructure that had grown organically over 15 years. Consumer-grade switches and routers were daisy-chained across the building, with no documentation of what connected where. The wireless network dropped constantly in the warehouse — particularly problematic since staff used handheld scanners for receiving and picking. The phone system was an aging Nortel PBX that had failed three times in the past year, each time requiring a retired technician from Halifax to make a four-hour drive for repairs. The company had no VoIP, no mobile integration, and no way for drivers to reach the office reliably while on delivery routes. Inventory discrepancies between the physical warehouse and their accounting system (Sage 50) averaged 8–12% monthly, leading to missed shipments and frustrated retail customers. The two delivery vehicles had no GPS tracking or route optimisation, and drivers communicated via personal cell phones with no company oversight.
What we did
- Surveyed and documented the entire facility, mapping every network drop, device, and connection point across the 12,000-square-foot warehouse and office space.
- Replaced all consumer-grade networking equipment with a managed UniFi infrastructure: USG Pro gateway, two 48-port PoE switches, and six access points positioned for complete warehouse and office coverage.
- Installed structured Cat6 cabling throughout the warehouse with dedicated drops at each picking station and receiving dock, eliminating reliance on wireless for critical scanning operations.
- Deployed a RingCentral cloud phone system with 12 desk phones, a warehouse paging system, and mobile apps for both delivery drivers — retiring the Nortel PBX entirely.
- Configured dedicated VLANs separating office traffic, warehouse scanners, security cameras, and guest Wi-Fi to prevent cross-contamination and improve performance.
- Implemented Datto networking with 4G LTE failover so the warehouse management system and phone system remain operational during Internet outages.
- Set up 8 UniFi Protect cameras covering loading docks, warehouse aisles, the parking area, and the main office entrance with 30-day cloud retention.
- Deployed SentinelOne endpoint protection across all workstations and the Sage 50 server, with automated patching managed through ConnectWise.
- Established proper Datto BCDR backup for the Sage 50 database with verified daily recovery testing.
- Trained warehouse staff on the new scanning workflow and office staff on the RingCentral phone system over two half-day sessions.
“We went from dreading every Monday morning because something would inevitably be broken to actually trusting our systems. The warehouse team says the new scanners and Wi-Fi alone saved them two hours a day in workarounds. I wish we had done this three years ago.”