WATERLOO, ON – Piller’s Sausages and Delicatessens Limited has built one of North America’s largest premium deli meat brands with over 50 years dedication to quality, and the best of European culinary traditions. At the same time, the Waterloo, Ontario-based company has moved to the cutting edge of enterprise networking technology, with a high-speed business network based on Atria Networks’ gigabit fibre-optic service.
Since December 2005, Piller’s Waterloo headquarters and nearby distribution centre have been outfitted with Atria Networks’ high-speed fibre network service
According to Scott Squires, Piller’s IT Systems Supervisor, Piller’s management decided to switch to Atria’s high-speed fibre network service for the head office nearly five years ago, shortly after Scott joined Piller’s as a systems analyst.
“Atria has provided our network service ever since shortly after I arrived here. When I joined, the previous Internet service was still just a regular lower speed connection.”
“The network speed and the price point Atria offered couldn’t be matched by any other service provider at that time, and soon after, we put Atria high-speed fibre into the head office, and later into the distribution centre,” says Squires.
The main goal of Piller’s — the promise of high network uptime and reliability — was satisfied as months and years passed with few or no glitches. “(Atria) makes our lives easier, because the network is much faster, and there’s essentially never been any downtime. It’s very good compared to the previous network,” he adds.
The high-speed network connecting their two Waterloo buildings, with servers in each building, allows seamless operation of financial apps for payroll, ordering and shipping (servers for these applications are housed in the head office), and email and other apps in the second building. The company uses Voice Over IP for phone service between the two buildings.
On its website, Piller’s says “All our facilities are fully networked with the most advanced high tech computer systems.”
As a result, we have the capability to manufacture all our products at any one of our facilities, so we can meet the demands of any customer, any request, any time of the year. At our warehouse, order picking uses bar code scanning technology in the racking system to find customer orders and send them to the conveyors for delivery to our shipping area for the most efficient delivery system in the industry.”
Looking ahead, Squires regards staying at the leading edge in IT as an important part of the Piller’s strategy to remain a food industry leader. He wants to extend the speed and reliability that Atria Networks’ service provides to Piller’s Waterloo corporate headquarters and distribution centre to their Brantford, Arthur and Toronto facilities. “Network and IT technology is very important in our future plans,” said Squires.