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As we enter 2024, businesses across the world are keeping an eye on the latest facilities management trends and undergoing significant changes. A key innovation is the introduction of indoor asset monitoring. Utilizing cutting-edge technology and real-time data, these indoor tracking solutions provide exceptional visibility into the location, condition, and operation of assets. This information enables managers to enhance operations, boost productivity, streamline maintenance, and reduce unexpected company expenses.
What problems do managers face?
As of 2023, the global asset management market is valued at approximately $49.6 billion. Forecasts indicate it will continue to expand, reaching an estimated $94.8 billion by 2028. Despite this rapid growth, managing and operating facilities remains a complex task, demanding adherence to specific standards and a broad set of responsibilities. Managers today often struggle with insufficient knowledge about the state of their infrastructures and assets, leading to:
- misplacement or loss of equipment and tools, particularly over large areas;
- frequent theft of valuable assets;
- excessive time spent searching for objects, time that staff could use more productively;
- significant costs for equipment maintenance due to delayed repairs;
- many emergencies related to unauthorized access, collisions, and equipment malfunctions;
- reduced labor productivity due to inadequate oversight of staff movements.
Facility management systems help solve these problems. Thanks to them, it’s possible to obtain detailed analytics about the company’s performance and take measures to ensure effective asset management.
Indoor tracking: operation, equipment, and technology
The indoor tracking system is a digital platform designed to locate and track assets. With it, you can perform real-time monitoring and control the movements of vehicles, equipment, or people inside buildings.
The system has a wide range of basic features. After it’s implemented, businesses can perform the following tasks:
- quickly searching for lost or stolen objects;
- monitoring the movement of objects on a digital map;
- establishing geofences and controlling the crossing of their borders;
- receiving the history of movements for any asset;
- building and adjusting vehicle routes in real time;
- collecting analytics to optimize the company’s performance;
- tracking working hours;
- sending notifications with warnings and various information.
Implementing these systems requires specialized software and equipment like beacons, tags, or readers, often using UWB or Bluetooth® Low Energy for precise location tracking (accuracy ranging from about 12 inches to 3 feet).
The system operates via radio signals containing unique IDs, sent by sensors in the facility or attached to monitored assets. Readers capture these signals and transmit the data for processing and user access.
Facility management is beneficial in various sectors, including healthcare, office spaces, warehouses, and airports. It also aids in managing specialized machinery and equipment in construction or industrial settings.
How Asset Tracking Can Solve Facilities Management Problems
As practice shows, the future of facility management lies in indoor tracking systems. These solutions significantly improve asset visibility, increase security and transparency of operations, prevent asset theft, and help reduce the organization's operating costs.
Improved visibility of all important objects and assets
The tracking platform allows the management to see any objects on the digital map of the building. The system determines their location in real time, so management always knows where each object is placed at the moment. This greatly simplifies the search for lost assets. Staff no longer have to waste time wandering around rooms and hallways to find equipment. Thanks to this, you can save employee time, speed up the assembly of orders in warehouses, and even increase the level of labor discipline.
Increased transparency of operations and workflow
With a modern tracking system, you can effectively control your work processes. Using tags and beacons allows you to track any assets, which improves inventory planning, helps prevent shortages of spare parts, materials, or products, and increases supply chain transparency. This approach simplifies the management of the business processes and helps develop them more successfully.
Improving employee safety in the workplace
Indoor tracking systems make work safer for staff. They increase awareness of the general state of affairs at the company, as well as help identify problems promptly and take the necessary measures to eliminate them. To ensure staff safety, the platform can perform the following tasks:
- sending emergency messages;
- installing entrances and exits in areas with limited access and reviewing the movement of each employee;
- building the shortest routes for evacuation in case of emergency;
- looking for employees who are closest to the emergency site and sending them to the emergency area to help other people;
- preventing possible collisions of equipment with people.
Theft prevention
By using the tracking platform, you can not only follow the facilities management trends but also prevent asset theft or even catch a possible culprit. The system allows you to set up geofencing with restrictions on going beyond the boundaries of the specified zones. As soon as the thief and the asset cross a given line, sound or light signals are immediately triggered, and a corresponding notification is sent to staff. This helps promptly deploy security services or involve the police in the search.
Reduced operating costs
Constant control over the movement of equipment and vehicles allows the management not only to obtain data on the current location of equipment but also to identify the presence of free assets and analyze workloads. The system helps reduce downtime and perform timely maintenance or repairs, which ensures a noticeable reduction in operating costs. Savings are also achieved through workflow optimization, which can be performed based on advanced analytical data.
As an expert in location systems, Navigine follows the current trends in facilities management software and offers highly accurate asset tracking systems for companies in a variety of industries. To learn more, you can consult our specialists and also view a free demo of the system here: https://navigine.com/demo-rtls/.
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