An ERP and a warehouse that talk to each other: robots, sensors and software on one platform
A third-party logistics company with distribution centers in the southeastern United States, a leader in its segment.
- Scale
- 4 distribution centers, autonomous mobile robots, industrial sensors, custom ERP
- Engagement
- Platform build and phased warehouse deployment over 14 months
The challenge
Inventory lived in an off-the-shelf system that could not talk to the warehouse floor. Staff re-keyed data, stock counts drifted, and adding robots or sensors meant a new integration project each time.
Warehouses create data constantly: every scan, every pick, every pallet movement. Much of it never reached the system of record. Inventory lived in an off-the-shelf system that could not talk to the warehouse floor, so staff re-keyed data, stock counts drifted, and adding robots or sensors meant a new integration project each time.
We built the platform from the floor up. Scanners, scales and temperature and vibration sensors publish events over MQTT to a local broker in each building, industrial equipment such as conveyors and machine controllers speaks OPC UA, and the custom ERP, which the company owns, consumes those events to keep inventory, orders, billing and carrier integrations current. Robot fleets are orchestrated through their own APIs and shown in the same dashboards as human workflows, so a manager sees one picture of the building.
The network is designed for machines as much as people. Operational technology sits in its own segment, separate from office networks, with 802.11ax Wi-Fi tuned for fast roaming (802.11r) so scanners and robots do not drop sessions as they move. Each building has an edge server so picking and shipping continue if the internet link fails, synchronizing when it returns. A site survey with real robots on the floor set access point placement, because a robot that loses its session stops and blocks an aisle.
The deployment ran one distribution center at a time over 14 months. The first building ran the old and new systems in parallel for a month, with nightly reconciliation reports showing every difference. Once the numbers matched for a full inventory cycle, the old system became read-only. Later buildings reused the same blueprint and went live in weeks. Cycle counts were done on the cutover weekend to give the new ERP a trusted starting inventory.
Testing covered the failures that stop a warehouse. We cut the building's internet link during a busy shift and confirmed that picking, packing and label printing continued from the edge server and synchronized cleanly afterward. We replayed a day of scan events at ten times speed to size the broker. Stock levels now update in seconds instead of hours, manual re-keying is largely gone, and adding a robot or sensor is configuration rather than a project.
What our team delivered
- A custom ERP for orders, inventory, billing and carrier integrations, built around the company’s own workflows
- An industrial IoT layer: scanners, scales, temperature and vibration sensors publishing over MQTT, with OPC UA to conveyors and machine controllers
- Wi-Fi designed for roaming scanners and robots (802.11ax with fast roaming, 802.11r), with a segmented network for operational technology
- Integration with autonomous mobile robot fleets through their APIs
- Edge servers at each building so operations continue if the internet link drops
- Dashboards for managers and automated exception handling
Result
Stock levels updated in seconds instead of hours, manual re-keying largely eliminated, and a platform where adding a robot or sensor is configuration rather than a project. In the modeled program, the first building went live after six months as a pilot, the other three followed in sequence over the remaining eight, and the old system ran in parallel until stock counts matched for a full month. Each building's edge server kept scanning and picking during a link outage and synchronized afterward, and exceptions such as a short pick or an out-of-range temperature opened a task automatically.
Automated data entry
Bots read invoices, forms and emails, check every field, and post clean records to your books, with a person reviewing only the uncertain cases.
ERP development and integration
One database keeps finance, sales, inventory, purchasing and HR in sync, connects to your banks and partners, and grows with custom modules built for how you work.
Super Intelligence data flow
Every request is classified by sensitivity, so confidential data stays on models inside your walls while routine work can use the best frontier AI.
Roaming without dropping the call
Time from leaving one access point to the first data frame on the next, split by phase. A full WPA2/WPA3‑Enterprise re-authentication repeats the 802.1X exchange; 802.11r (Fast BSS Transition) reuses cached keys, 802.11k (neighbour reports) removes the blind scan, and 802.11v (BSS transition management) lets the network steer the client. Illustrative figures.
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