Lineage Logistics Case Study

The situation

Lineage, the largest dynamic temperature-controlled warehousing and logistics company in the world, is responsible for literally keeping food on people’s tables. Any operational failure in the firm’s warehouses – many of which must maintain a constant temperature at or just above freezing-point – can disrupt global food supply chains, generate significant amounts of spoilage, and even endanger the safety of onsite staff. And with many of Lineage’s automated systems running on Wi-Fi connectivity, the health of its wireless networks matters more to safe and reliable food storage than ever.

“Lineage’s business impacts the lives of millions worldwide,” said Simon Hayward, Managing Director of Affinity Blue. “Working on their infrastructure is both a huge privilege and responsibility.”

Lineage’s flagship Hume Road “cold-chain” warehouse is the largest temperature-controlled facility of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. The facility’s Wi-Fi network relied on more than 200 Aruba access points – all of which had served Lineage well for many years but were fast approaching their use-by date. Lineage’s IT team also needed a more efficient way of managing its huge fleet of access points than configuring them individually via console.

“Everything from printers to conveyor belts and automated forklifts runs on the warehouse’s Wi-Fi network,” Hayward said. “Lineage knew they needed to take action sooner rather than later or face operating risks that would soon prove unacceptable.”

The results

The Hume Road network refresh took just under a year to complete, with more than 200 devices now typically connecting to the warehouse network at any given time. With minimal performance issues on both switches and access points, the new network has already proven a boon to Lineage’s onsite staff.

“The cloud centric management tools Affinity Blue use to manage our extensive Aruba network, not just at Hume Road but other sites Australia-wide and in New Zealand, gives us a great dashboard to monitor the health of our network,” said Clayton. “It’s really helped us become more proactive in addressing issues as and when they might occur.”

Monitoring and troubleshooting access points now takes significantly less time thanks to Aruba Central’s one-cloud approach, greatly simplifying the steps that Lineage’s IT team takes to update and alter configurations. Aruba Central, coupled with Affinity Blue’s approach to VLAN configuration, has also allowed Lineage to adopt a “plug and play” model for adding new access points and devices, giving it the flexibility to further grow its digital footprint.

“It takes great technology and even better implementation partners to deliver solutions that adequately handle the complexities of cold storage warehousing,” said Venu Metla, South Pacific Mid-market Leader, HPE Aruba Networking. “Aruba technology coupled with one of the industry’s best implementation partners in Affinity Blue meant that we were able to jointly deliver a solution that delighted the customer.”

“The team at Affinity Blue played a pivotal role in successfully rolling out this Wi-Fi project successfully, on budget and to a tight timeline across a range of contractors,” said Clayton. “They don’t just talk the talk, they walk the talk in delivering high-quality reliable networking solutions that aligns with our businesses’ needs – both now and into the future.”