5 Steps to Identifying Your Company’s Industrial Wireless Network Needs

Right now, in California, a logistics provider is trying to coordinate shipment containers and checks the overseas shipments schedule for the latest update.

Later that day, a distributor in Tokyo accesses his company’s online database for records of the top channel partners in his region.

While traditional thinking would suggest that all of these examples would rely on one common element, a wireless network, current demands suggest that these real-world examples require a uniquely tailored wireless network solution built for industrial facilities and use cases.

How does your IT team today determine your company’s current industrial wireless system needs and assess whether they are being met?

When was the last time the wireless network at your industrial sites was upgraded or refreshed – does it lag behind the deployment of new mobile devices or applications?

Do you need an overhaul or just a tweak? How different are the capabilities of your wireless coverage at these industrial facilities, and are those differences advantageous or harmful to your productivity and profitability at those sites?

Ask yourself these five key questions to gain a better understanding of your current situation and identify areas for improvement:

1. Can your WLAN support reliable mobile connectivity in a complex and dynamic environment?
Think in terms of changing inventory, higher density racking systems, fast-moving vehicles and devices and the increasing demand on your staff, equipment and time. Your wireless network must adapt as your industrial facilities and environments change, ensuring you can meet your customers’ needs now and in the future.

2. Can your network support a broad range of consumer and industrial strength devices?
Extend your thinking beyond the common Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) categories to the wide variety of wireless devices – handheld, tablet, and vehicle mount, for example – needed to conduct your day-to-day business. The multitude of mobile devices can wreak havoc on your wireless network if it’s designed to support legacy portable high-power devices (like laptops) and not today’s truly mobile handhelds.

3. Can your industrial network deliver the optimum amount of bandwidth for each voice, data and video application?
Let’s face it, the demands on broadband are large, and they only are getting larger. Although the 802.11n standard provides significant bandwidth capabilities, and 802.11ac on the horizon provides even more, bandwidth is always finite. Optimization of 802.11n benefits depends largely on how you architect your network, making a solid understanding of your bandwidth needs key to successful operations.

4. Do you have the tools and/or resources to monitor and manage your industrial wireless network and devices in real time?
This can be summarized to a few simple phrases: real-time management and proactive troubleshooting. Downtime is everyone’s worst enemy, but how prepared your team is to ideally prevent and minimize that downtime is the differentiator between a solid industrial wireless network solution and one that needs improvement.

Without a robust software toolkit and embedded resiliency and adaptability within your wireless network, your IT staff runs the risk of constantly chasing issues and your operations teams will be constantly frustrated with spotty service and unreliable coverage. Industrial wireless demands the intelligence within the platform itself to deliver mission-critical performance, and partnerships that can provide flawless service levels to ensure your production and fulfillment operations aren’t interrupted by wireless issues.

5. Can you deploy a unified corporate-wide WLAN optimized for both carpeted and industrial environments?
Companies operating both industrial sites and corporate, carpeted office environments have traditionally had a tough decision to make. Do they run a bifurcated network where industrial sites are insulated from corporate carpeted sites (and potentially from one another) with purpose-built networks optimized for each, and struggle with a lack of a unified backbone to tie it all together?

Or do you make compromises with networking equipment that isn’t optimized for either your industrial sites or corporate sites in the spirit of achieving the greater good of a core common backbone?  New offerings provide the opportunity to optimize your wireless networking equipment with purpose-built solutions for both environments without compromise or tradeoff, and retain the vision of a single unified solution.

These questions reflect the fact that real-world industrial wireless network demands are hectic, intense, demanding and complex, and they come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes. Yet virtually every industrial environment demands a high-speed communications network that is more robust, more efficient and more reliable than any standard system deployed in an office building or corporate headquarters.

It’s time to evaluate whether the network in place at your industrial sites and facilities is truly industrial-grade and, if not, what changes you need to make to ensure your employees, assets, and materials at those locations are fully connected to enhance your productivity and profitability.

Cal Calamari is Global Solutions Lead for Enterprise Networks and Connections at Motorola Solutions.

Learn more about wireless LAN networks at www.motorolasolutions.com/wlan and about Motorola’s manufacturing solutions here. Learn more about Motorola’s 802.11ac access points here.