What Can You Do with a Backpack of RTLS Equipment?
The voice of the internet sometimes makes technologies sound like strange super entities. People talk about AI, Big Data, THE Internet of Things, or Digital Transformation as if they’re universal frameworks that exist only on a grand, finished scale spanning entire cities.
In reality, any of these technology concepts can exist at much smaller scales too. They often have to start small before growing into something truly ground-breaking.
Real-time location systems (RTLS) are a good example of this. RTLS can be complex—the technologies involved sometimes require large amounts of equipment, convoluted installations, and training. WISER’s ATLAS is an ultra-wideband (UWB) RTLS designed to get around some of these difficulties.
So. What can someone do with a backpack-full of RTLS equipment like WISER’s?
1. Run the system in your own operational environment
There’s a big difference between RTLS working accurately in a lab and delivering the same results in an operational setting. This disparity is one of the things that makes RTLS tricky to implement and makes relevant site-testing critical.
End users’ physical environments often bring a plethora of challenges, including:
Obstructions and clutter
A lack of connectivity
Radio frequency interference
Reflective surfaces that muddy transmissions or cause multipath propagation
Heat, humidity, dust, gas, or free-flowing water
Workers or forklifts moving around could bump into equipment and damage things. The nature of the setting could make RTLS equipment difficult to reach or even inaccessible if maintenance is needed. Most work settings also have limits on where they can or cannot easily power stationary devices, like the antenna nodes WISER’s Locator system utilizes.
Related content video: Using the WISER RTLS in a Warehouse Setting
In short, working with the physical setting at hand is a key part of deploying RTLS, and each environment is truly unique in one way or another. Environmental factors are part of why the WISER Locator is designed for flexible installations, various powering options, and continuous operation without a line of sight between devices. This is also why organizations exploring RTLS should consciously consider not just what they’d like to do but where they’d like to do it.
The WISER Locator operates the same way with a handful of antennas as it does with dozens or hundreds, so even our shoebox of equipment can be enough to really test whether this system works for an environment in question.
An example: A multinational automotive manufacturer wanted to track bins of parts moving through a welding area. The welding process essentially creates RF noise, posing a threat to RF signal integrity in the vicinity. With just a small deployment of WISER equipment in the area, the manufacturer was able to validate the system’s performance while the welding line operated.
2. Data integration
Reporting location data is one thing. Figuring out how to interpret or use the data can be even more challenging.
It’s worth noting that there are cases where end users don’t need to integrate into an ERP, MES, or similar software tool, since some RTLS initiatives only require basic data access, like the ability to search for a named asset from a tablet. In this case, a pilot project lets end users simply test the delivery of that data.
Most larger WISER projects integrate location data into the customer’s own processes via WISER’s API. That said, it’s not necessary to have a large project before determining where, when, and how often to send the data; this process can start from the proof-of-concept (POC). Early access to raw location data equips end users to tinker with the actual application of data points, fine-tune the use case, and put weight on the broader purposes and requirements of the project from the start.
For instance: A heavy equipment manufacturer had carefully built a system connecting location data to software tools like its ERP, but their legacy hardware providing that data had been discontinued and was no longer serviceable. When the organization approached WISER about replacing its RTLS hardware, both companies worked together to implement WISER’s location data using the manufacturer’s existing middleware. This preserved the company’s initial investment and made WISER’s hardware effectively a drop-in replacement for the older solution even before the manufacturer committed to a large, long-term project.
3. Prove out a larger use case
There’s a reason few Internet of Things (IoT) projects begin at scale. Pulling the pieces together, making things work, and determining if the project is scalable can all be sticky issues.
Say, for instance, you wanted to track carts or bins moving through a warehouse. Testing at the pilot stage will clarify issues quickly—like if the tracking hardware is too bulky or heavy, or if you’re going to need routine battery recharging that hampers the project’s scalability as more and more assets are added.
System installation, as another example, is often a black box to end users. Installation can require RTLS providers to visit a site in-person anytime the system needs to be adjusted even slightly. A complicated RTLS setup or adjustment process can seriously expand the total cost of ownership. As such, trying a small RTLS pilot can be illuminating not only for system performance but for the scalability and true expense of setting up a larger deployment.
WISER’s system architecture allows for simple, modular scalability. If, in the future, end users need to track additional assets or enlarge the tracking arena, they can add antenna nodes and tracking tags piece by piece without having to redo the setup already in place. This flexible design allows end users to test early, scale incrementally, and keep the project manageable at every stage.
Case in point: A yard management services organization wanted a better system to track vehicle locations precisely in lots or enclosed parking garages where GPS is unavailable. This organization started using a basic setup of several WISER antennas and a few tags. After finding success with a small WISER POC, the organization expanded the project to cover a full lot and began repeating the process at similar locations elsewhere.
Bonus: Location-based time and motion studies
Even just a backpack’s worth of equipment can be enough to start automating time-motion studies. Such studies could entail quantifying how containers move between workstations, identifying periods of idleness for key equipment, or measuring how bottlenecks occur in a location-based process.
Industrial engineers are often already conducting time-motion studies, generally using manual processes, which can require a great deal of effort and expense. Real-time location cuts out the need for starting or stopping a timer or analyzing hours of footage. It can also eliminate the need for human observation in the moment, since precise location histories will be available afterward to study what’s going on and run analytics to help improve processes.
As an example: A consumer goods manufacturer wanted to see how routine work processes might be optimized. To gather the data desired, they planned to study location-based work processes for short times in several different areas of a site. This meant that the manufacturer needed a solution that could a) provide precise, time-stamped location data, and b) would not require extensive installation or support, since the data-gathering process would be repeated so often in new physical areas. A small set of WISER antennas and tracker tags met this need, allowing the manufacturer to gather data in each focus area and then to deploy or remove the system quickly and repeatedly without much effort.
Be sure the system really works
To summarize all the points above, you could say the real purpose of an RTLS pilot is to ensure that the system actually works. RTLS has an unfortunate history of unkept promises—ranging from claims about accuracy and update rates to scalability and general system performance. Finding technologies that deliver as promised is more important than ever before.
The best way to do it is to move beyond the lab and apply the technology to a real business problem at a real location. Even then you’ll probably encounter hiccups and roadblocks. But you’ll be confident, in the end, that RTLS can solve business problems like yours.
Post by Stephen Taylor, Director of Communications at WISER Systems, Inc.