The opportunity Westcoast's new Andover warehouse provided was immense - just like the warehouse itself - 460,000 square feet of flexible space with a huge Configuration and PDI Centre.
Saw-Tec Network Solutions has had the pleasure of supporting and expanding Westcoast’s IT infrastructure in their UK and European operations for the past 20 years. This has ranged from structured cabling solutions implementing both copper and fibre optic infrastructures, complete Comms Rack restructuring and patching for a more robust and amenable solution for the end user’s constant growth and reconfiguration of its staff and operations. Complete Access Point and WiFi deployment throughout their sites using an Aruba solution so that staff moving from site to site always have seamless connectivity. We are also involved in CCTV, Access Control and Electrical installations on behalf of Westcoast.
Established in 1984, the Westcoast Group remains privately held with its distributor arm, Westcoast Limited, distributing leading IT brands such as HP, HPE, Microsoft, Lenovo, Apple, and many others to a broad range of resellers, retailers and office product dealers in the UK and beyond.
Since then Westcoast Limited has grown to become the number one UK distributor for many of our vendors and customers. The Westcoast Group employs more than 1,600 people across a number of locations in the UK, Ireland and Europe.
Thanks to the hard work and dedication of their staff, the Group is flourishing. Their revenues have seen a sharp increase in recent years reaching £2.8 billion in 2019.
They are consistently ranked in the Sunday Times Top Track of the 100 Largest Privately-owned UK Companies, and are now the largest privately held business in the Thames Valley region.
Westcoast’s Andover Warehouse is the most recent addition to their ongoing growth and is part of their continued investment in future proofing the business and its core distribution business.
Saw-Tec Network Solutions were involved at a very early stage and just prior to actual completion of the tenancy agreement. We worked alongside the many bespoke contractors and Westcoast IT to enable us to draw up the D&B for such a large open space which by completion would have over 50 duplex racks standing 14m high and up to 90m in length. This would require the high-level cabling and deployment of over 100 suspended Aruba 360 series AP’s that had to each be dead and centre of every Aisle and exactly 15m from floor height prior to the racking installation.
We installed circa 1000 x Category 6a FFTP Ultima cables throughout the site (28,000m in total) and a Draka OM4 Fibre Optic FDDI ring with various direct channel backbone links (2,200m total). This included 14 Site wide SER’s and a 5 Cabinet MER. All our works we’re completed, tested and warranted within program and Westcoast had this fully functioning within 5 months start to finish. We now maintain the site along with the rest of the Westcoast estate.