Applications & Case Studies

Distribution & Logistics
Star Track Express, Australia
Star Track offers freight and tracking solutions, in Australia and internationally, with over 1000 vehicles and 1150 employees.  In 2000 they installed a DECT system in their Victoria operation, which houses around 450 employees.  After a year their conclusion was that customer service levels had been improved and communications costs have dropped dramatically.  Download the case study (pdf).

Education
The University of Northumbria, Newcastle, Northumberland and Carlisle, UK
The University has had a DECT system installed by Philips Business Communications. To streamline the communications infrastructure at Coach Lane Philips Business Communications installed just one SOPHO iS3070 Application Server at the main site and laid cables under the road to the new building to connect the two campuses. This enabled the two sites to operate as a single network and staff to be allocated just one DECT handset and one extension that could operate across both locations.

Northumbria has now also replaced its paging system and equipped just under 200 of its staff with Philips DECT C922 handsets that enable them to make and receive calls from either Coach Lane site. These handsets also provide access to all the advanced features of the Philips SOPHO platform, including Direct Dial In (DDI) and voicemail.

The reasons DECT was chosen for this situation was because as Andrew Walls, Telecommunications Manager at Northumbria University, explained "With DECT you get direct communication but at a fraction of the cost of calling a mobile and with far superior reception - plus all the features and functionality of a desktop telephone." Download the case study (Word Doc)

Factories
Miele, GermanyMiele, Germany
Domestic appliance manufacturing plant at Gutersloh, northwest Germany
PBX with integrated DECT capability giving full premises coverage, 800 handsets
Subsequent installations at two other Miele plants
Source: DECTForum Newsletter, Volume 1, no 3, December 1997 and Alcatel's website

Volvo, Sweden
Probably one of the earliest production site deployments, and perhaps one of the biggest, is that at the Volvo facilities in Torslanda, Sweden.  The Volvo facilities occupy a main site of 5 sq km, with 3 additional sites, each of 1 sq km; some 25000 employees work on these 4 sites. The sites are extensively covered with DECT wireless PABX coverage, with 8000 handsets used on site.  An additional 4000 handsets are used on other Volvo sites throughout the country.  Financial benefits have been estimated as 15 minutes per employee per day, as well as additional savings on telecom rewiring/renumbering when staff are relocated on the site and the additional flexibility of telecommunications provided.
Source: Talk by Stellan Jacobssen, Volvo Data, at the DECT 98 World Congress

Hospitals & Healthcare
Rivierenland Hospital, Netherlands
70 basestations, giving full coverage of a 375-bed hospital complex, 200 handsets
Source: DECT Forum Newsletter, Volume 1, no 3, December 1997

South Alvsborgs Hospital, Sweden
This very large hospital, with 4500 employees, is spread over 3 widely separated locations in southern Sweden, some 35-50km apart, located in Alingsas, Boras and Skene, and has a very large multisite, multicell cordless deployment. 

At the end of 1998, the three locations had respectively:
Alingsas:  60 DECT basestations, 100 handsets and 600 wired phones
Boras:  250 DECT basestations, 650 handsets and 2250 wired phones
Skene:  45 DECT basestations, 100 handsets and 400 wired phones
The PABX's at the three sites are interconnected by 2 Mb/s links are automatic call forwarding enables DECT handsets to be located automatically regardless of physical site.

Surveys of staff indicated that the DECT system had delivered significant improvements in staff accessibility and reachability
More information
Source: Case study presented at DECT '99

Safety of DECT in the Hospital Environment
At least two reports have evaluated the use of DECT in hospital environments from the safety viewpoint...

UK - "Electromagnetic Compatibility of Medical devices with Mobile Communications", MDA DB 9702, March 1997
Evaluation of the effects of a wide range of mobile radio / telephone devices, including DECT, on an equally wide range of electrical/electronic medical equipment in the hospital environment
Available from the Medical Devices Agency, London, fax +44 171 972 8113

Sweden - "The introduction of DECT in health care environments"   by J. Welinder et al. SP Report 1997:18. 28pg. Evaluation of four reports concerning cordless phones and medical devices. Interference, risks, recommendations, EM-fields, in situ testing, routines when introducing DECT in modern health care.
Available from SP, Swedish national testing and research institute, fax +46-33-135502.

Hairmyres Hospital, Scotland
Opened in 2001, the new hospital had  DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telephony) and paging capability from Philips Business Communications installed.

The 400-bed hospital, serves 200,000 people across East Kilbride and Hamilton. The hospital is equiped with a SOPHO iS3070 Application Server now serves the new Hairmyres' site, with a SOPHO iS3010 standby switch providing back-up in the unlikely event of main system failure.

The hospital has also currently deployed 180 DECT handsets to both medical and support services staff, and is the first Philips customer in the UK to have a fully integrated dual DECT paging system. Download the case study. (Word Doc)

Royal Marsden NHS Trust specifically for Cancer Patients, Europe
The DECT system from Philips Business Communications was installed to increase its overall efficiency and ensure it continues to maintain and enhance the quality of care and service for the 30,000 in-patients and 100,000 outpatients that attend the hospital each year.

The Royal Marsden has now replaced two existing PABXs at its two sites with a single centralised Philips SOPHO iS3090 Application Server at Sutton capable of handling up to 10,000 extensions. Calls to both sites are managed through six user-friendly, PC-based Supervisor 60e Operator Terminals located at Sutton, with a further two installed at Chelsea to provide immediate disaster recovery back-up support should the Sutton system unexpectedly become unavailable.

The hospital has introduced direct dialling (DDI) with voicemail for all its 1,800 telephone extensions, enabling it to remove expensive direct exchange lines as well as relieving the call load to the main switchboard. A Philips SM410 Windows-based system management solution now also provides the hospital with detailed and accurate call information reports to enable it to analyse calling patterns and identify where further efficiencies can be made through effective usage of its new communications capability. Download the case study (Word Doc).  

Queen Margaret Hospital, Fife, Scotland
Increasing the accessibility and contactability of key medical staff was the reason for the decision to implement DECT technology from Philips Business Communications.

The DECT solution, implemented and continuously supported by Philips Business Communications, is now available to over 230 mainly medical but also maintenance and administration staff at the Queen Margaret's Dunfermline site. The supplier also installed its SOPHO iS3070 iSPBX to support 600 desk-top extensions and provide the hospital with additional communications capability to streamline call handing. Download the case study (Word Doc).  

Hotels
Westin St Francis Hotel, San Francisco, USA
Freepoint Telecom have worked closely with the Westin St Francis hotel in San Francisco in an extensive 12 month trial, during 1997 which consummated in a full commercial deployment   using PWT (a US variant of DECT) in March 1998. The commercial deployment offers a cordless telephone in all 1200 guest rooms, as well as a complete telecommunications package available to convention customers at the hotel. Executive floors are equipped with wireless fax machines. Wireless data trials, enabling guests to have wireless Internet access from their PC’s throughout the hotel commenced during 1998.

Hotel Adlon, Berlin, Germany
The Adlon Hotel, supported by Deutsche Telekom, have installed a comprehensive DECT cordless system for use by guests and staff, involving some 128 base stations distributed throughout the complete building.  All guests are supplied with a DECT telephone on arrival, enabling them to make and receive calls at anytime anywhere within the hotel complex.  In addition a personalisable voicemail service supports messaging for calls that arrive when guests are off-site.  Staff also use the same DECT system, eliminating the need for pagers and enabling an improved level of customer service to be provided to guests.
Source: European Communications, Winter Supplement, December 1998

Supermarkets
Coles Supermarkets - part of Coles Myer, Australia's largest retailing group.
Their supermarket in Pakenham Victoria introduced a DECT system in 2001 and have reported significant improvements in both productivity and responsiveness.  Download the case study (pdf)

Warehouses
Franklins Grocery Warehouse, Australia
Deployed in the company's warehouse, distribution and administration headquarters, 16 basestations, 40 handsets
Source: Ericsson website Franklins Grocery Warehouse, Australia
Deployed in the company's warehouse, distribution and administration headquarters, 16 basestations, 40 handsets

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