Business Telephone System Provider Completes Grocery Store Conversion: Part Two
Business telephone system provider TelWare recently converted voice, paging, data, and cellular systems in five Charleston, SC Piggly Wiggly stores for Harris Teeter, a grocery chain based in Matthews, NC that purchased the stores. If you missed part one of our grocery store conversion blog, you can read that here. Keep reading to find out how our dedicated technicians successfully completed a monster task within a short schedule.
Part Two
On Monday, the technicians started work on the second Harris Teeter store, a beautiful upscale structure with exposed decorative beams that, unfortunately, made cabling more difficult. Leaving only a few crew members behind to finish labeling some of the cabling at the first store, the technicians encountered a new challenge. The location that had been chosen for the new data and telephone racks was in the only hallway that led to the store’s storage freezers.
Harris Teeter staffers had to move all of the frozen goods from the sales floor to those freezers, meaning that TelWare technicians had to move their scissor lift out of the way each time a new pallet of frozen goods was brought in from the sales floor. This made the installation of the data and phone equipment painfully slow. Still, the technicians plugged away at it, prioritizing some of the other tasks until traffic slowed, ultimately getting all systems online by the end of the day.
Technicians used Tuesday to put the finishing touches on the first two stores and run some service tickets in the area. On Wednesday, TelWare took the initiative to get access to the third store a day early, while it was still a Piggly Wiggly, and began work. This would prove a tremendous advantage since Harris Teeter had scheduled work to start on the third and fourth store simultaneously on Thursday, and ended up making a massive change to the schedule.
The big twist came on Thursday evening when Harris Teeter informed the technicians that the fourth store would not reopen as soon as scheduled, and the fifth store would close three days early on Friday, so the cleaning and repair crews would have more time to get those two stores in shape to reopen. This meant that TelWare technicians would have a little extra time on the fourth store, which they had just started work. They also needed to start another store before finishing the two already in progress. Each store required, at the very least, its data network operational by the end of the first day of closing, so store employees could receive merchandise to support the store reset.
The Telware technicians assessed each store and then split their ranks on Friday to tackle the last three stores. While one crew of technicians returned to the third store to finish up, another team was sent to the fourth store to install the phone system, and a final crew began cabling at the fifth store. Harris Teeter then informed the technicians that the back room in the fifth store would not be accessible until Sunday due to cleaning and painting. In other words, the remote data rack and telephone system - and any associated cabling - could not be installed until then. So, by Friday evening TelWare had completed the third and fourth stores, and all that remained was the fifth.
On Saturday, TelWare technicians divided again. While some went home to recuperate, others remained behind in Charleston to run service tickets and finish cabling the last store on Sunday, returning home on Sunday night. On Monday, three technicians returned to Charleston to install the phone system and cell booster equipment at the previous store and complete a final check at each of the other stores. By Tuesday of the second week of work, all of the stores were complete and the last three technicians were on their way home.
In only nine days, three less than scheduled, TelWare technicians had successfully converted all five Piggly Wiggly stores to meet the IT needs of their new owner and operator, Harris Teeter. The technicians logged long, hard hours with the cooperation of other vendors and supportive Harris Teeter corporate staffers to complete a goliath task within a short schedule.
To learn more about TelWare’s exceptional business telephone system services, contact TelWare at (704) 220-6030 or sales@telware.com. We look forward to helping you upgrade your communication infrastructure so you can focus on more pressing issues, like the growth of your business!
