How to Select a Real-Time Location System (RTLS) for Manufacturing?
If you’re reading this, chances are you know that real-time tracking can help reduce manufacturing costs.
Indeed, many companies are doing the same thing: in fact, the global real-time tracking systems market is projected to reach $7,585 million by 2022, which means that a lot of businesses are investing in this solution.
If you’re interested in finding out what you need to know when considering a real-time location system for your manufacturing, read further.
Why Use Real-Time Location System for Manufacturing?
A real-time location system (RTLS), an infrastructure consisting of hardware that identifies and tracks the position of moving objects in real time, is becoming an increasingly relevant investment for manufacturing businesses.
The reasons for this are the following:
- Tracking work-in-progress (WIP) with RTLS can help with finding solutions to minimize it
- Tracking manufacturing processes can help to reveal inefficiencies, waste, uneven work distribution, and other issues
- Tracking equipment can identify low-value activities that cause delays, reveal the actual asset activity levels, and see where the performance might be increased.
The overarching reason why manufacturers are most motivated to evaluate RTLS is its potential to minimize labor costs and operating expenses while keeping production at the same level.
How to Select a Real-Time Location System for Manufacturing
Choosing RTLS for manufacturing requires you to know three important things: the tracking technology, scalability, and the ability to provide analytics.
Let’s discuss these three considerations in more detail.
Step 1: Choose a Suitable Tracking Technology
There are several widely used indoor RTLS technologies: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID), and Ultra Wide-band (UWB).
The first three respective technologies have significant drawbacks; for example, Bluetooth has a very limited range while RFID has low accuracy and is very sensitive to metals (which means it has little value for industrial businesses).
Moreover, all three require heavy filtering to provide high accuracy and use a very overcrowded 2.4 GHz band. These disadvantages make them suitable only for applications in offices, conference rooms, and shopping malls.
On the other hand, an RTLS based on UWB is well-suited for industrial applications because:
- It can achieve an accuracy of up to 30 centimeters
- It works well in heavy metallic environments
- It has less power than typical background noise, so it exists in harmony with other radio signals, including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Step 2: Make Sure the RTLS is Scalable
Companies providing real-time tracking solutions typically provide a testing kit that covers a limited area to allow the business to see the benefits of using the solution. For example, Indoorway also supplies a trial solution for a limited area size so the user recognizes the real benefits of tracking manufacturing processes and internal logistics.
The trial solution consists of a limited number of location tags and data hubs that form the infrastructure that generates real-time data about processes for customers. If the customer would like to extend the installation to cover specific processes or entire production, Indoorway provides additional tags and hubs.
This means that an effective RTLS for manufacturing should be able to track hundreds of location tags in one facility. Here, UWB is a suitable choice, too, as it allows a high user density, so you would be able to identify specific assets and inventory in crowded environments quite easily.
Besides, the installation time of such as RTLS is quite short despite a high number of tags and hubs; for example, the installation of Indoorway RTLS covering 1,500 square meters takes only 8 hours.
Step 3: Ensure that the RTLS Generates Analytics
Analytical data gathered by RTLS about the movement of assets in industrial environments or manufacturing processes is one of the primary reasons why businesses invest in this solution. The range of data provided by RTLS is wide, so let me use the example of Indoorway analytics.
First and foremost, Indoorway RTLS turns asset location and movement data into insights that can be accessed in the analytical dashboard. It’s the center of RTLS operations where the user can see the assets moving in real-time and access historical movement records.
If the user of RTLS wishes to test specific KPIs in processes — asset activity, asset usage, etc. — Indoorway provides regular analytical reports and notifications based on these indicators.
For example, the image below is a small part from an analytical report created by Indoorway showing two process inefficiencies: uneven work distribution (marked by UD) and a significant asset activity drop (AD).
As a result, the business using the RTLS can reveal inefficiencies and issues in the tracked processes and work on developing changes for cost reduction and further optimization.
Important: always check if RTLS provider supplies API. This allows the location data to be integrated with Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP), which means easier integration with your organization’s IT infrastructure.
This Is It?
While these three factors are the most important to keep in mind when selecting RTLS for manufacturing, the benefits of the solution listed above are not exhaustive.
In addition to the listed benefits, real-time tracking of manufacturing and internal logistics can help with creating digital spaghetti diagrams, reducing labor costs, maximizing shift productivity, reducing motion waste, and other things.
If you’d like to know more about this, feel free to take a look around the Indoorway blog or visit our site indoorway.com.
