This is a guest blog written for WESTEC by WISER Systems
Losing things is a universal problem. What’s worse, lost assets usually mean lost money for manufacturers of every kind.
For instance, losing inventory often requires pausing operations to search for it. Missing tools can delay project completion or require purchasing replacement items. Losing a shipment usually sours customer trust—not to mention adding costs to fill the order.
The solution? WISER Systems has developed a new wireless technology to make sure no business loses key assets in the first place. This solution saves time and money by autonomously locating and tracking critical assets in real time.
WISER Systems’ Redundant Radio Localization and Tracking (RRLT) solution shows the precise locations of any tagged asset, with inches-level accuracy in most cases. This doesn’t require manual scanning or a line-of-sight between devices. Nor does it require permanent RFID portals or wiring to install. Furthermore, it tracks precisely in reflective, cluttered environments like factories, where legacy real-time location systems (RTLS) don’t typically perform.
Here are just three benefits WISER’s ultra-wideband (UWB) system gives manufacturers.
- Reducing planned downtime
Inventory represents a huge source of planned downtime for all kinds of organizations. It’s cumbersome, repetitive, and error-prone but key to smooth operations. WISER’s micro-location system isn’t intended as a catch-all for inventory management, but it does give an always-current accounting of critical assets like machinery, forklifts, tools, pallets of product, or whatever else you’d like to monitor. Once the system is deployed, users simply type the name of the item they’d like to find in WISER Systems’ software. Geofencing features enable users to virtually mark out areas in which each item could be allowed or not. This lets you identify immediately if something moves where it shouldn’t.
- Cutting unplanned downtime
Unplanned downtime costs manufacturers about $50B per year. WISER Systems’ technology can help trim these costs quite a bit simply by reporting the real-time locations of critical objects.
What if you need a forklift, but someone misplaces it? This often means sending someone out to search while another someone stands waiting, unable to continue their work. A factory producing just a value of $10 per minute loses at least $4,800 for a single day of downtime. Imagine the costs for factories producing higher values. These costs can actually be much higher too—for instance if that downtime stops a line, delays a shipment, or diverts multiple workers.
- Improving Site Security
Asset theft is about as expensive as unplanned downtime, costing $50B annually. What if you could alert a supervisor or security officer before a stolen tool ever left the building? WISER Systems’ geofencing features allows end-users to customize alerts for the moment an asset breaches its virtual perimeter. It also generates a granular history of asset locations, showing each step before and after the perimeter breach.
Conclusion
It’s easy to calculate ROI when you know the value of your missing items. This means that most manufacturers can find dozens of ways to save time and money with micro-location data.