Private cellular keeps label printing manufacturing facility running 24/7
Discover how Heartland Label Printers upgraded from a struggling Wi-Fi system to a private cellular solution, ensuring seamless connectivity for business-critical scanners in its manufacturing plant.
Highlights
Image courtesy: Heartland Label Printers, LLC.
“Customers or engineers that are deploying the (private cellular solution) can go into NetCloud, upload floor plans of the customer environment, plan cellular access points, determine the appropriate coverage, and even simulate different endpoints in the tool to predict performance in that environment.”
— Matt Eide, technical architect, enterprise cloud, Heartland Business Systems
The challenge
Heartland Label Printers needed to address some troubling network challenges:
Frequent Wi-Fi connection drop-offs
Wi-Fi signal interference caused by equipment, inventory, and plant configuration was disrupting the work of Heartland employees who depend on scanners every day. These frequent connection drop-offs were interrupting production and lowering yields.
Excessive Wi-Fi infrastructure
Providing Wi-Fi in Heartland’s large manufacturing required numerous access points and switch ports, and extensive cabling — creating high costs and complexity in setup and management.
Image courtesy: Heartland Label Printers, LLC.
The solution
Heartland Business Systems collaborated with Heartland Label Printers to address connection issues by deploying an Ericsson private cellular solution. The solution includes:
- Ericsson Private 5G Compact
- Ericsson Private 5G Mobility Gateway on a virtual server
- Ericsson NetCloud Manager
- Ericsson Private 5G Compact radios
- Ericsson Private 5G Compact A2405 (outdoor cellular access point)
- Erisson Private 5G Compact A2400 (indoor cellular access point)
- CBRS spectrum (Band 48)
“Having a cloud-based platform like NetCloud to manage the private cellular network is a huge benefit. Wi-Fi or other solutions might require additional hardware or controllers on-prem to manage and track the assets.”
— Matt Eide, technical architect, enterprise cloud, Heartland Business Systems
The result
Image courtesy: Heartland Label Printers, LLC.
Following the deployment of Ericsson’s private 5G solution, Heartland Label Printers experienced numerous benefits, including:
Broad and reliable wireless coverage
Heartland’s private cellular solution provides greater coverage with fewer access points than Wi-Fi, eliminating frequent drop-offs.
Enhanced security
Private SIM cards are used in the endpoints and onboarded through Ericsson NetCloud for efficient deployment and exceptional security.
Greater efficiency, less infrastructure
With Ericsson Private 5G Compact, far fewer access points, switch ports, and cables are necessary to provide the coverage that Heartland needs. It’s less hardware to deploy and manage.
Scalable for future growth
With a scalable network in place, Heartland can seamlessly on-board new digital tools to help drive the business forward and support its innovation needs.
