14 things to have ready before you commission any wireless survey for a new build, a refresh, or a problem investigation.
Commissioning a Wi-Fi survey without preparation is the most common reason warehouse wireless projects run over budget and under-deliver. A survey team can only design against the information you give them, and the gaps you leave behind become the dead spots, roaming drops, and scanner failures you live with afterwards.
Work through this checklist before you commit to a project. Your survey will be faster, more accurate, and far less likely to need a costly revisit.
An accurate drawing with dimensions, not a marketing site map. CAD or PDF is ideal. Flag it if your most recent plan predates your current racking layout.
Note rack heights, aisle widths, and mezzanine levels. Metal and dense stock absorb and reflect signal, so the team designs around your real storage profile.
A warehouse surveyed empty performs very differently when full. Note what you store, how densely, and whether levels swing seasonally.
Mounting options, fire doors, cold-store walls, and structural steel all shape a design. Identify restricted-access areas before the walk-through.
A perfectly tidied warehouse. Survey teams want to see your space as it normally operates. An artificially cleared floor produces a design that fails the moment you return to business as usual.
Handheld scanners, forklift terminals, label printers, tablets, VoIP handsets, loT sensors. List types, quantities, and which roam versus stay fixed.
A fleet of older scanners locked to 2.4GHz constrains the design regardless of how modern your access points are. The oldest critical device sets the bar.
Devices that move continuously, like forklift terminals, need seamless roaming. Identify the applications that cannot tolerate even a momentary drop.
Load is about how many devices are active at once during your busiest period, not total device count. Peak dispatch is a very different profile from midnight.
The people running picking, dispatch, and goods-in know where connectivity already fails. Capture their input before the survey.
Document current switching, cabling, power for access points, and any VLAN or security needs. A design that ignores your infrastructure cannot be implemented.
Finance and operations should agree scope before the survey, not after the quote. Clear budget bands and go-live dates keep the design deliverable.
Be cautious of a fixed access point count quoted before walking your site, a predictive desktop model with no on-site validation, or any team that cannot explain how it accounts for your racking and stock.
Coverage heatmaps, recommended access point placements and counts, channel and power planning, identified problem areas, and a clear rationale for every decision.
Ask whether the engagement includes a validation survey to confirm the design performed as modelled once live. The gap between predicted and actual coverage is where problems hide.
If you can answer the points above, you are in a strong position to commission a survey that delivers a network fit for how your warehouse actually runs, rather than how it looks on a quiet afternoon. Bring this checklist to your first conversation with any provider.
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Talk through your requirements with the Wi-Net Connect team before you commit to any wireless project.