More than a century ago, Italian immigrant Omero Del Papa established a company in Galveston, Texas. Today, that firm, Del Papa Distributing, delivers more than 10 million cases of beer annually for 30 suppliers, ranging from beer giant Anheuser-Busch to small craft brewers and energy drink manufactures, such as Red Bull.
But during that century of growth, operating the flagship location grew increasingly complex as new warehouse-management systems, communication technologies and building energy-management solutions were deployed. By 2010, it was time move to away from Galveston, says Steve Holtsclaw, Del Papa Distributing’s director of information systems. “Ownership was tired of recovering from hurricanes, dealing with legacy equipment, an old building, and we were not in a central location,” he explains. “We were looking for a more stable facility.”
In 2012, Del Papa opened a new distribution center in Texas City, Texas, having worked with Zones, a value-added reseller of connected communication networks and sensor systems, to integrate many of the new facility’s systems into an IoT solution that has helped the company boost operational efficiency by 18 percent, as well as cut energy consumption by 27 percent throughout the past three years.
Zones built the IoT system on a Cisco platform that links all of the new facility’s various systems—voice-over internet protocol (VOIP) phones, including wireless VOIP handsets that employees carry so that they can always be reached within the building; a Cisco TelePresence system that allows Del Papa’s employees at different locations to collaborate via video conferencing; video surveillance cameras; physical access controls for gates and doors; digital signage for employee messaging; temperature sensors in the warehouse, and inside keg refrigeration units linked to the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) units; and the warehouse-management software’s voice-based picking system—into a single network running on Cisco cloud servers and accessible via a virtual private network (VPN).
All told, the system has digitally linked more than 2,000 devices and sensors that perform a range of functions, such as monitoring the environment within the DC, energy usage, network traffic and employees’ approximate locations.
Each employee is issued a badge with an integrated passive key card provided by HID Global. These are used to enter the building, and the card readers are linked to Cisco 6050 IP surveillance cameras, mounted near the doors. This provides building security with a visual recording of each entrance, which it can use to confirm that a particular worker is entering, and not an unauthorized party. Each employee is also given a Nedap active RFID module that is placed on his or her personal vehicle. To enter the secure parking lot, the individual places his or her badge in the module, which functions both as an HID card reader and an active RFID transponder. The module sends both the employee’s card ID number and its own identifier to a Nedap receiver at the gate. The receiver then transmits this data to Cisco’s Physical Access Manager software, which manages all gate and door locks, as well as to security cameras, and monitors the movements of all vehicles and employees through these gates and doors.
Stephen Lurie, Zones’ VP of Internet of Things, says that because the new warehouse was a greenfield project, his company was able to test and evaluate all communication and sensing systems as the project was coming together—Zones even used the network of IP video cameras during the building’s construction to monitor the security of valuable construction materials. Currently, those cameras monitor the security of the products inside the warehouse, while also monitoring doors and docks.
“We designed the IT systems with the architects of the building,” Lurie says. “That is where we can get ahead of a project like this, and that is best for [the client].” This started with routing the CAT 5 cabling that serves as the backbone for the various IP components, from Wi-Fi access points to sensors used in the HVAC, communications or video surveillance equipment. Zones worked to ensure that all componentry was either addressable over IP or could be added to the IP network through an adapter.
One key feature in making the new warehouse significantly more functional than the former Galveston facility is reliable Wi-Fi coverage, Holtsclaw reports, since this solves issues Del Papa was having with the voice-guided picking component of the Softeon warehouse-management system the company uses.
In Galveston, “We were just trying to get by,” Holtsclaw says of the order-picking system. “The wireless was spotty at best, so the system would not perform or keep up with the picker. He’d go from one spot to the next and wait for the system to catch up with him.”
At the new Texas City warehouse, Holtsclaw reports, order builders regularly meet or exceed the company’s goal of picking 100 cases per hour—and in some cases, employees are doubling that goal, which earns them an incentive award. “A picker can work at his own pace and not worry about the system catching up with him [because poor Wi-Fi coverage creates latency in the voice-picking commands],” he states. “That’s a huge positive influence we’ve seen.” Thanks to the adequate Wi-Fi coverage, the voice-picking system does not suffer from delays. As a result, Del Papa pickers spend less time building out orders and more time attending to other tasks, such as ensuring that inventory levels remain up to par, which further improves picking rates for other pickers.
The new building’s energy usage is far better managed and regulated than it was at the Galveston warehouse, and not just because it is far better insulated. Wired and wireless sensors throughout the 100,000-square-foot facility send data up to the HVAC controls. If temperatures exceed a set threshold—due to unusually warm or cool temperatures outside, or because a busy day means the dock doors are opened and closed frequently—the HVAC system, made up of Trane heating and cooling equipment and Vaisala sensors, makes adjustments, in concert with very large ceiling fans. These fans are made by Big Ass Fans and have integrated, IP-addressable temperature sensors, in order to ensure that temperatures remain within the storage settings Del Papa has ensured its suppliers.
“The warehouse is just a big cooler, with machines and people driving around in it,” Holtsclaw says. “But the old facility was only 60,000 square feet and needed four or five chillers running 24-7 because of inefficiencies.” Despite being 40,000 square feet larger, the new building operates with only two chillers. The fans are also a big reason the new warehouse requires fewer chillers, he notes. Additionally, sensors on the dock doors will issues alerts to building managers if they are left open for excessive periods of time, which can allow heat into the building.
Since the Texas City facility’s opening, Del Papa has begun upgrading some of the systems at its two other Texas distribution centers, located in Beaumont and Victoria. By linking those systems into Cisco control platform, Holtsclaw and his team can troubleshoot any issues that may arise without having to travel to the other facilities.
“Any time, anywhere, someone—assuming they have permissions to log into the VPN—can sit in front of a computer and get onto the network,” Holtsclaw explains, “and see what they need to see and control what they need to control.”
Next up for Del Papa is a solution that will extend the IoT platform to the company’s trucking fleet, thereby allowing the firm to remotely monitor the locations and environmental conditions of its precious cargo.
The work of bringing the 100-year-old company into the Internet of Things has been rewarding, Zones’ Lurie says, and not just because it has helped the company to light its environmental footprint and boost productivity. Sometimes, he says, Zones’ employees get to crack open a few beers on the house.