5 Ways in which Real-Time Location System Improves Manufacturing

How to reduce the cost of manufacturing without affecting the output?

How to increase the productivity of the workforce while keeping labor costs at the same level?

How to accurately measure the performance of manufacturing and internal supply chain?

With labor costs rising and competitors catching up, manufacturing managers find themselves constantly searching for effective solutions to become more cost-effective and Lean.

One solution that has been getting a lot of attention is real-time location systems (RTLS). With the global RTLS market projected to reach $11.81 billion in 2024 from the 2017 value of $2.37 billion, it’s clear that CEOs find RTLS to be an effective solution to address the above questions.

But how does one use RTLS in manufacturing for optimization and improvement? Let’s begin with the basics.

What is RTLS?

Real-Time Location System (RTLS) is an accurate positioning system designed to track the indoor location of people and equipment in real time.

With RTLS, you can monitor the movement of the tracked assets within indoor spaces in real time and save the data for further analysis. The evaluation of the historical data helps to learn the history of asset activity and identify movement patterns.

Key Components of RTLS

There are several RTLS components involved in asset data collection and analysis. For example, Indoorway RTLS includes:

• Location tags are portable, easy-to-carry data transmitters that send location data in real time. Can be manufactured for tracking of employees, forklifts, and other moving and non-moving assets
• Data hubs collect location data from location tags; typically, they’re installed on walls and ceilings
• Analytical dashboard (the application). This is the center of operations where the user observes real-time asset movement and learns about their actual utilization in processes
• API. If the user of Indoorway RTLS wishes to incorporate location API in the applications used at their facilities, they can do so. The location API features algorithms and models that can work with management applications and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

Although it may sound that installing this infrastructure takes a lot of time, the actual time frame required for the installation and configuration of Indoorway is as little as one day.

The key feature of RTLS delivered by its infrastructure — the ability to monitor assets within defined indoor zones with accuracy up to 1 m — is the most interesting for manufacturers.

Benefits of Using RTLS in Manufacturing

Real-time manufacturing floor data collection can help businesses with the following tasks:

• Optimizing material flow
• Improving equipment and asset ROI by increasing utilization
• Increasing employee productivity
• Identifying redundant equipment
• Improving material supply.

Let’s discuss these in more detail below.

1. Optimization of Material Flow

Material flow optimization and analysis with RTLS involves monitoring the material flow to identify inefficiencies such as insufficient buffer stock, measure completion times, and determine the most common issues.

For example, by observing material replenishment processes, a production manager can spot inefficiencies leading to longer process times and preventable stops.

2. Increasing Equipment and Asset ROI

Let’s suppose that you’ve tracked five forklifts and two groups of employees during multiple shifts. The data that you’ve collected with RTLS for production can help you to answer the following questions:

• Are there any underused assets?
• How much time during a shift do your employees spend on searching for a piece of equipment, e.g. a toolbox?
• How much time do employees spend on low-value tasks during the shift?
• How active are employees during the shifts?

Often, business managers find that some of the assets are underused for different reasons; for example, Indoorway Lean manufacturing experts once found that a forklift was severely underused because it had a poorly attached control handle.

Unsurprisingly, that forklift was eliminated from the process, reducing operating costs by 5,000 euros monthly while having no negative effect on the process performance.

3. Increasing Employee Productivity

Tracking employee productivity with RTLS is a way to monitor their activity levels during shifts. For example, by giving your workers RTLS location tags, you’ll be able to see their movement during the shift in real time.

After you collect the movement data with RTLS and replay it, you’ll be able to:

• Identify the most time-consuming tasks for employees
• Spot issues such as uneven work distribution and delays
• Recognize reasons for delays, e.g. poorly optimized manufacturing floor layout (this alone can save you up to $9,050 annually, as studies showed).

4. Identifying Redundant Equipment

Manufacturing and internal supply chain are two very cost-centric industries that require continuous improvement. One way for business managers to reduce cost in manufacturing with real-time tracking is to use RTLS to find underused equipment.

As it was mentioned above, analyzing asset activity data may help to reveal that some of them are underused and should be replaced.

5. Improving Material Supply

Using RTLS in manufacturing can help to ensure a proper material supply, which is a critical requirement for efficiency. For example, by tagging boxes with materials with location tags, the user of RTLS for production can see how many of them are left at a certain point in a process.

As a result, the manager will be able to notify the workers to replenish the material supply. Moreover, by observing the historical patterns of material supply, it becomes possible to improve it and maximize the effectiveness of the production line.

The Bottom Line

RTLS has emerged as a tool to improve manufacturing because of a number of interesting use cases, so the adoption of the technology is quickly growing. Since RTLS still remains a fairly novel technology for manufacturing businesses, many require help with achieving the benefits listed above.

That’s why Indoorway has a dedicated team of Lean manufacturing experts to assist production managers with this task. If you’d like to know how your business can benefit from using Indoorway RTLS, please feel free to visit our website indoorway.com.