Case History: Bell-Carter Olives

Aironet Aids World's Largest Olive Company with Wireless Solution

It may sound a bit clique from an olive company executive, but every computer user knows it. 'It's the pits waiting for your modem to dial up your remote server when you're in a hurry", says Ray Rogers, Network and technical services supervisor for Bell-Carter. "That was the way we used to have to work.  Now we have found a wireless solution."

Bell-Carter Olive Company is the world's largest ripe olive company. It has been family-owned for the past 85 years located in Corning, in Northern California. In addition to its 50+ acre Corning plant and headquarters in Lafayette, California, Bell-Carter has regional offices in Chicago and New Jersey. The company registered sales of $100+ million in 2002 and maintains over 500 full-time employees. The company produces 50% of all the black olives consumed in the U.S.

The northern California operation is spread out over six buildings: main office, receiving, processing, storage, handling and warehouse. As the company grew and as computers became an important part of managing the operation, it became clear that Bell Carter needed a network.

Although olives are harvested only a few months a year, they are processed all year long. Olives are trucked to the Bell Carter processing plant where they are weighed and sorted by size and then put in a storage solution. Olives are hard and bitter when harvested so they are put in brine for holding. Next olives are pitted and/or sliced, canned, and pasteurized for consumption.

"We set up a server in our main offices. Without a hardwired network, users were forced to dial in to the mainframe via modems. "It was relatively slow and dialing in over a phone line cost a penny a minute. In the busy season we could be running our processing operation two shifts a day, 16 hours. That meant our phone bill was steep," said Rogers.  "Another problem we had was that without a hardwired network, transferring large files between buildings took for ever."

Each of the six Bell-Carter facilities has a number of computers. They are hardwired to a backbone network, which connects to an Aironet Client Adapter. The Aironet Client Adapters link to Access Points, which wirelessly link to Bridges at the other facilities.

"Our largest processing building is two miles away from our main complex. Running a hard wire that distance was cost prohibitive so the Aironet wireless Bridge was exactly the solution we needed to link it to the network," said Rogers. "Our largest building is quite big, the equivalent of nine city blocks long. We wired half the building running a costly overhead conduit. Now we have put a wireless Bridge at one end with a wireless Client Adapter connected to the network and we have complete network coverage throughout the building."

Today thanks to Aironet wireless solutions and system designer and installer NAS Wireless, Bell Carter employees are able to stay connected to the network all the time. They are able to communicate by email real-time and transfer files at Ethernet-like speeds.