How Real-Time Location Tracking Benefits Your Industry

Keeping on top of where things are and building a real-time map of your space – these are two of the results you can expect from real-time location tracking, or RTLT. In our latest article, we examine how this is applied to construction, manufacturing, and warehousing.

Across almost every industry, location tracking is a valuable capability. Logistics firms need to know where their vehicles are, warehousing companies need to orchestrate a huge amount of data points across their storage spaces, and agricultural organizations must be able to track expensive and business-critical machinery.

Until fairly recently, however, this has meant compromising. Management teams could only track the location of assets up to the point of the last audit or update. Any tracking of movement or flow of assets was broad and imprecise, and high-accuracy tracking of location and movement vectors across a smaller space was essentially out of the question.

But real-time location tracking has changed the landscape for manufacturing, warehousing, construction, and other industries. Thanks to systems like RENITY ARTEMIS, management teams gain an accurate, up-to-date, and constantly evolving picture of what is going on within their facilities. 

By implementing real-time location tracking capabilities on construction, warehousing, and manufacturing projects, the ARTEMIS RENITY system is helping enhance safety, increase capability, reduce losses, and optimize results. Let's take a look at this in more detail.

A manufacturing plant is a busy environment that requires careful and effective management. Real-time location tracking has a major role to play here, providing the data insight and modeling capabilities that teams need to manage the plant floor.

By deploying a range of ARTEMIS asset tags, wristband tags, and badge-type tags, teams can ensure that assets are trackable across the space. The ARTEMIS UB-A200 or UB-A100 anchors then receive communication directly from the tags, building up a clear picture of the manufacturing facility's current status.

The benefits of this include:

• Enhanced efficiency of automated assets and human personnel
• Implementation of off-limits areas to prevent avoidable accidents and collisions
• Optimized asset position and utilization tracking
• Effective asset utilization analysis, providing data for improving the situation
• Automated alerts for production line monitoring and control

The data provided by location tracking solutions is extremely valuable in manufacturing applications. By feeding this data back into centralized systems, teams can achieve smart management of the manufacturing environment, optimizing processes and maximizing productivity.

In fact, smart systems can go even further than this. The next generation of manufacturing will revolutionize the production line, enabling more effective interfacing between human teams and the automated systems that support them.

Real-time location tracking helps warehouses become next-gen spaces, leveraging the latest digital technology to achieve streamlined, reliable results. A warehouse is not simply a large receptacle for storing items – it is transformed into a smart and fully integrated component of a broader business system.

Smart tags – such as the UB-T110 asset tag and the UB-T100 badge type tag – are attached to items within the warehouse. These tags relay a signal back to anchor points, creating a multi-dimensional map of where each item is found throughout the space.

The benefits of this include:

• Easy monitoring of inventory flow and simple visualization of item position across the space
• Enough data to inform the design and layout of warehouse spaces, for optimum results
• Improved management of assets and equipment, ensuring proper storage and preventing theft
• Enhanced safety through geo-fencing technology that eliminates collisions
• Direct integration with warehouse management system (WMS) software

Construction projects continue to form the backbone of industry and infrastructure in nations across the world. While this importance has not diminished over the years, the way in which the project is executed has changed significantly. Smart technology now makes construction sites safer and more efficient than ever before.

Once again, it is integration with RENITY ARTEMIS location tracking that is helping to make this shift possible. A combination of UB-T100 badge type tags, UB-A200 asset anchors, and wristband tags communicates with anchor points. These points then feed data back to central servers and system user interfaces for effective RTLT in the construction of the space.

The benefits of this include:

• Effective management of equipment, vehicle, and personnel movements around the site
• Improved Human Resources processes, supported by direct data
• Easy monitoring of maintenance and repair work
• Better worksite safety, thanks to automated alerts and manual SAS buttons
• Smart integration with drone technology and artificial intelligence systems to ensure compliance with specifications

It is the RENITY ARTEMIS system that provides the foundation for our RTLT solutions across construction, manufacturing, warehousing, and other industries.

This system works by bringing together three levels of RTLT technology, which combine to give management teams and other stakeholders an accurate view of what is unfolding at the facility or worksite. These three levels are ultra-wideband (UWB) radio-based communication, accurate floor mapping, and data analytics and computation.

Ultra-Wideband Radio-Based Communication

Ultra-wideband, or UWB, is a wireless communication protocol that supports connections over a small area. It is differentiated from other similar protocols, such as Bluetooth, thanks to its higher frequency.

The UWB protocol facilitates one-way communication from the tag to the system's anchors.

Accurate Floor Mapping

In order to achieve accurate positioning across a single dimension, the UWB signal must be received by two anchors. To create an accurate two-dimensional map of the facility floor or site space, four or more anchors must pick up the signal.

The RENITY ARTEMIS system utilizes multiple anchors positioned strategically around the space. Receiving the UWB signal, these anchors build up a reliable and real-time picture of where each tag is within the space.

Data Analytics and Computation

Data from the second stage of the system is relayed back to central servers via an application programming interface. It's this API that enables direct integration with existing systems, like WMS software, making sure that the data is not only available but can be used effectively.

Once received within the system's user interface, human personnel can gain insight directly from it. Alternatively, teams can deploy artificially intelligent processing tools to make sense of larger datasets.

Discover more about how Avalue's products are making all the difference, providing RTLT capabilities to construction, manufacturing, warehousing, and other industries. Reach out to our team today.