Five considerations when choosing an indoor asset tracking solution
Indoor asset tracking solutions make it possible to monitor the location, condition and movement of assets within indoor environments such as hospitals, airports, industrial sites and logistics centres. This offers substantial business benefits, including enhanced operational efficiency and agility, loss and theft prevention, opportunities for proactive maintenance, optimized asset utilization, and more.
Although outdoor asset tracking encounters its own set of challenges, indoor asset tracking presents unique complexities that require specialized solutions. These challenges include wireless interference caused by obstructed equipment and complex regulatory requirements that can be overcome with a solution tailored specifically for indoor environments.
When it comes to deciding what option is best for your facility and target use cases, these are five factors to consider.
1. Accuracy and speed requirements
Having a solution that can frequently and accurately track an asset’s location down to a specific room is essential for certain use cases, but might be excessive for others. For this reason, it is important to consider what needs to be tracked and why. A hospital with many rooms across multiple floors requires higher accuracy to know the exact location of IV pumps and other specific assets. Occasionally, staff will move these assets around, but not frequently enough to require real-time tracking. Conversely, an airport terminal aiming to monitor available wheelchairs for passengers may prioritize frequent updates over pinpoint accuracy, as these assets are typically visible, but often on the move.
Additionally, various settings may demand both highly accurate and real-time updates. Consider an industrial site tracking forklifts and heavy machinery to avoid collisions, or a logistics centre requiring higher accuracy for inventory tracking and frequent updates for mobile asset management.
2. Diverse building structures
Each indoor environment is unique, and not every tracking solution will be suitable for all locations. How your building is constructed is an important factor because the wireless signals from some solutions will not be able to pass through certain materials. Solutions that use sub-GHz technology can penetrate most materials, including reinforced concrete, timber and plastic. Large metal surfaces may be more challenging for signals to penetrate, but thoughtful network design can overcome that.
Another factor to consider is the placement of temperature sensors. Rechargeable batteries like lithium polymer are not suited for extreme temperatures. Where temperatures fall below −10°C or exceed 50°C, you will need sensors that use non-rechargeable batteries like lithium iron disulphide, which have a rating for reliable operation between −40°C and 60°C.
Access to the electrical grid may be essential for powering network infrastructure in accordance with your business’s specific use cases. Additionally, evaluating suitable locations to mount wireless equipment and sensors could prove crucial. It is also important to consider industry-specific factors, like a hospital that requires sensors made with medical-grade materials.
3. Security features and regulatory compliance
Indoor asset tracking systems must include security measures to protect the collection and transmission of private data. Depending on your business sector, you might need to ensure your asset tracking solution complies with specific government regulations and industry standards. This is especially important for airports and hospitals, where national security laws and other policies apply. For instance, if your business must comply with ISO/IEC 27001 or Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, you will want a solution with end-to-end encryption and secure databases for storing sensitive data.
To meet the requirements of annual ISO/IEC 27001 audits, you will also want to ensure your tracking system’s supplier can clearly demonstrate and verify the business processes they have put in place to protect sensitive information and what they are doing to continuously improve their security posture.
4. Cost
It is always important to determine the total cost of ownership (TCO) of any option you are considering. The right solution can help minimize TCO in several different ways, such as if the vendor employs a scalable approach to asset tracking. For example, you might not always need a real-time locating system (RTLS) with sub-second positioning updates across your facility. Using a scalable approach, a vendor can mix network technologies to enable RTLS where needed, while minimizing costs with a low-density mesh network serving the areas where it is not. This will reduce initial installation costs because there is less network infrastructure to deploy, as well as reduce ongoing maintenance expenses by extending battery life.
You can minimize TCO by streamlining deployment. Some options involve costly and complex testing and setup processes that make it difficult to manage budgets and forecasts. Cost-effective options include application-programming interfaces (APIs) that make it easy to integrate the tracking solution with existing systems.
5. Flexibility
Your solution should be flexible enough to support use cases across your entire site. While it is possible to deploy more than one indoor asset tracking solution to serve your needs, it is best to avoid a fragmented technology environment that discourages interoperability and compatibility.
In addition, consider flexibility in terms of how well the solution can adapt to your future needs. Hardware based on Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Zigbee will become obsolete over time as those protocols evolve. On the other hand, you can upgrade a solution that uses software-defined radio (SDR) technology in its hardware over time by downloading new software to each device. This also maximizes your ROI because you can use the hardware for a longer period.
Track any asset, anywhere, with Bell
Asset tracking can give you visibility into the location and condition of assets across your facility. Indoor asset tracking solutions from Bell are reliable, cost-effective, and flexible enough to support most use cases and are future-proofed with SDR technology. Our solution specialists can help you design and deploy an indoor asset tracking system that meets your requirements for accuracy and speed across your environment, using a scalable approach that maximizes ROI that are all backed by the best 5G network1 and largest LTE network2 in Canada.
Visit our asset tracking solutions page to learn more.
Sources:
1. Based on a third party combined score (Global Wireless Solutions OneScore™) speed test results in 5G network areas from Bell.
2. Based on total square km of coverage on the shared LTE network available from Bell vs. Rogers’ LTE network. See bell.ca/LTE for details.