Challenge
Manufacturers tend to inherit their networks one fix at a time. In the plants and warehouses we are asked into, each building has been extended by whoever was available, with whatever equipment was on hand. Nobody holds a current picture of what is installed.
The symptoms show up on the floor. Handheld scanners drop their connection between racks, a line stops while someone restarts an access point, and each site is managed separately with its own equipment and its own logins.
Approach
We start on site, with the buildings in use. The findings go to leadership before any equipment is ordered, and the approved work is scheduled around production.
- Walk every building, test wireless coverage with the devices staff actually carry, and record what is installed.
- Deliver current-state diagrams and an improvement plan for leadership to review and approve.
- Redesign wireless around how each building is used, including roaming for devices that move.
- Bring switching, firewalls and wireless at every location under one management console.
- Give each administrator an individual, two-factor login, so every change is recorded against a person.
Result
These companies now run one documented network design across their facilities, and support comes from the engineers who did the work.
- Wireless coverage planned from measurements taken on the floor.
- One console and one set of standards for every site.
- Security events reviewed routinely, not only after a problem.
Our advice
If your sites were built at different times by different people, start with documentation. A day spent drawing what you have usually pays for itself in the first outage that follows.
Related service: Networking & wireless.