Case Study: Sterling Autobody achieves centralized network visibility and simplified guest Wi‑Fi with Cisco Meraki

Gaining network visibility and delighting customers with advanced wireless solutions

Sterling Autobody, a nationwide collision‑repair chain with about 1,050 employees and 60+ locations, faced fragmented, hard‑to‑manage Wi‑Fi—running two separate Internet connections per shop (a controller‑based corporate network plus consumer gear for repair machines), no centralized visibility, and complex CLI troubleshooting. To address this, Sterling turned to Cisco Meraki’s cloud‑managed Wireless LAN and Mobile Device Management (Systems Manager) to consolidate networking and gain centralized control.

Cisco Meraki deployed a single cloud‑managed access point per location, configured segregated SSIDs (employee with Active Directory authentication, guest and machine networks), and enabled built‑in client fingerprinting, Layer‑7 visibility, traffic shaping and MDM. The result: centralized dashboard visibility across 60+ sites, rapid remote troubleshooting of 8–9 shop PCs per location, quick mitigation of streaming‑related bottlenecks via traffic‑shaping, the ability to blacklist offenders, and elimination of costly air cards—delivering simplified operations and measurable cost and time savings for Sterling Autobody.

Sterling Autobody

Andy Corbett

Network Administrator