Warehouses Go Wireless

For Bellingham, Wash.-based solution provider Ryzex Group, having comprehensive wireless solutions helped them win business with midmarket Saddle Creek, and strong service and support have helped the solution provider keep this customer.

Saddle Creek, while headquartered in Lakeland, Fla., has about 20 warehouses throughout the United States where its customers store products on their way to retail and grocery store shelves. When it wanted to repair some wireless gear in its warehouses, Saddle Creek went to Ryzex Group.

"They had some equipment that was on the verge of or some of it was near obsolete. [Ryzex] buys back as well as refurbishes equipment, we sell new, and [offer] rentals and repairs," said Chris Hanson, senior account manager at Ryzex Group. "We had been supporting some of their older equipment," he said.

Hanson was able to take that relationshipmainlining older equipmentand leverage it to generate sales of new wireless networking products.

"Because of their growth and expansion they moved into needing new equipment as well as all of the integration work that goes with it," he said. His solution incorporated new and refurbished handheld wireless scanning devices and wireless access points from Symbol Technologies, Holtsville, N.Y., and wireless network management software from Wavelink, Kirkland, Wash. Making the transition to the new products and software wasn't difficult for Saddle Creek once the systems were up and running.

"The original equipment they were using, that com-pany was bought out by the current OEM's equipment they're using. We introduced them to the newer style. It seemed to be compatible, so it seemed to be an easy switch-over," Hanson said.

Kathy Fulton, manager of technical services at Saddle Creek, agrees, and said that the simplicity of the Wavelink management softwareAvalanche Mobility Center and Mobile Managerin the new wireless system is helping the logistics company be more efficient.

"It saves us a lot of time. Rather than dedicating a person to doing the wireless gear, we can do it en masse, especially on the warehouse startups. It's very important for us to be able to get all of the warehouse gear in on one day, get it installed and configured, and have it running the next day," Fulton said.

For deployments like the one done in Saddle Creek's 350,000-square-foot facility in Fort Worth, Texas, which involves 36 access points and 15 mobile units, having a simple-to-manage system is important to Fulton.

"With the software you create a configuration, then you apply it to many devices. If I'm creating the 36 access points that we did for our Fort Worth facility, I created one configuration file and then basically connected those access points to a dedicated network. I pushed out configuration files, and within an hour, all of my access points were configured and ready to be installed," she said.

Fulton is pleased with the system, and even more so with the relationship she's developed with Hanson and Ryzex. The same technician has worked on-site for the deployments, and Fulton said that builds her confidence in Ryzex.

"If I ever don't understand something, Chris is right there and he's getting somebody on the line who can explain it to me if I need it to [be explained]," Fulton said.

When Saddle Creek came across a snag in the system and the handheld scanners could not accurately read bar codes on products that were 25 feet tall, Fulton again went to Ryzex for help. The solution provider helped the customer reconfigure the way the bar codes were displayed so that the employee on the ground could do the scan.

The maintenance of this solution provider/customer relationship seems to be key for both parties.

"We like them so much that we recommend them to our customers," Fulton said. "We're a family-owned business and Lakeland is not a huge town. [The relationship with Ryzex] just felt right from the beginning. Here's someone who is really interested in helping me make my job easier and helping me to make my business better."

Hanson concurred.

"I think most resellers understand, and I really think, it comes down to the relationship and the people involved," he said.