Having a device that can only do one thing is rarely a good investment. Who wants to go back to phones that only make phone calls? Yet so many factories are tied to one-hit wonder solutions that may work great doing their intended task, but how are they benefitting the bottom line?
Originally the i-Virtualize team developed TRACE Sensors real-time location services (RTLS) to help manufacturing work smarter by making it easy to locate assets and inventory quickly. However, one day in March, the i-Virtualize team realized that TRACE Sensors had so much more to give customers when it came to ROI.
Let’s count the ways TRACE Sensors enables manufacturers to multiply their RTLS ROI.
1. Factory Efficiency
RTLS is a leading element of Industry 4.0 transformation. Crisis or not, businesses still need to keep humming and driving efficiency. Using the comprehensive data TRACE Sensors provides to streamline workflows and enhance productivity. Using the data gathered with TRACE Sensors, factory managers could determine where they could make big or small changes that could dramatically impact their bottom line. For example, one of our customers uses the data provided by TRACE Sensors to create a more efficient workflow that saves them 15 minutes a day, which adds up to about $150. With 100 shops across the country, that could lead to a savings of $15,000 a day. Compounded over one year, the solution just paid for itself and provided substantial ROI.
2. Mitigate Accidents
Tagging employees and assets, such as forklifts, provides factory managers with a way to keep their employees safe on a day-to-day basis. Loud factory floors and warehouse shelving that stretches to the ceiling make it difficult for workers on foot or driving a forklift to see each other. Every year more than 250,000 workers are injured in factories and most of these injuries are due to employee contact with objects and equipment. RTLS employee and asset tagging enables you to stop these kinds of preventable accidents from happening. This will not only help you cut workers’ compensation claims and overtime costs to cover shifts, but more importantly, help you protect your employees and even save lives.
3. Inventory Management
What used to take weeks of round-the-clock manual counting, collating disparate reports, and huge chunks of overtime for your already overwhelmed workforce, can be cut substantially, turning your annual inventory headache into an efficiently managed non-event. Plus having an accurate running tally of all your inventory at all times, as well as being able to locate them quickly anywhere in your facility, means less overspending, less items going missing, and more revenue staying in your wallet.
4. Enhanced Possibilities
As technology expands and data analytics provide greater insights to support future operational processes, TRACE Sensors RTLS will expand with it, providing many yet-to-be-defined opportunities to drive efficiency and get more out of your initial investment.
Technology innovations like RTLS are driving the Industry 4.0 evolution and the i-Virtualize team is at the forefront of putting RTLS to work for all our customers’ unique needs and use cases so they can reap the benefits of state-of-the-art real-time location tracking and tracing within their facilities and realize greater ROI across the board.
Learn more about how RTLS is empowering Industry 4.0 transformation and schedule a demo today to see how TRACE Sensors can help you build a smarter factory.
