Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) are becoming an increasingly popular solution for manufacturing companies in various industries. They are mainly used to improve the efficiency of production processes and to better allocate resources.

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In recent years, the global RTLS market has been growing in importance (projected to grow by more than 17% per year). This is mainly due to the fact that more and more companies are realising the advantages of making decisions to optimise production processes based on real data provided not only by machines, but also - thanks to the Internet of Things - collected from mobile resources involved in production and internal logistics processes.

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Attaching a location tag to such a resource, such as a forklift, is a very effective solution for capturing inefficiencies in its use. Even greater benefits can be gained from analysing the movement of workers, who play a more significant role in production than forklifts. Although such a measure may raise some concerns, it all depends on the purposes for which the employer wants to use the data collected. However, it is important to remember that they are restricted by the Labour Code, as well as by data protection regulations.

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In our experience, data on the movement and location of employees is used primarily to analyse the efficiency of the production process and automatically allocate labour costs. In fact, this is usually just an extension of the work that Lean and finance departments already do. The implementation of conclusions from the analysis of location data can also provide many benefits in areas such as internal logistics and warehouse management, as many of these processes, despite increasing automation, are mainly operated by people.

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In this article, we discuss how a manufacturing company can improve employee productivity with a real-time location system.

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How to monitor the movement of employees in a production plant or warehouse?

The Real Time Asset Location System, based on precision solutions such as Ultra Wideband (UWB) technology, uses discrete locators (transmitters) worn by employees on their wrist, in their pocket, or on their helmet. They can also be used as access cards. The locators make it possible to monitor the movement and location of workers in real time, even in vast industrial spaces such as warehouses and manufacturing plants. The locators send data at a high frequency to signal receivers installed on the ceiling or pillars, which then transmit the data to the cloud, where it is available in the form of heat maps, among other things.

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How to improve employee productivity with a real-time location system?

Since you can't improve something that isn't measured, the first step to improving productivity is accurate and real-time data on the processes in which employees are directly involved. RTLS systems, such as Indoorway, can operate uninterrupted around the clock and are able to provide location data with sub-meter accuracy. The data is then visualised in a variety of formats as required. For example, it can relate to activity (in the form of heat maps), the amount of time spent in different zones (each production outlet can be a separate zone), the length of a given cycle including deviations, etc. You can then compare this information between shifts, individual employees (e.g. their seniority, to see the differences between experienced and new employees) or in terms of different products.

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The information obtained can be used in several different ways:

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1. quick wins

Our clients are invariably surprised at how much they learn about their processes just a few days after starting regular traffic measurements. Often these are obvious things that were known about, but few realised the scale of the problem. However, there are also quite unexpected and non-obvious discoveries.

Such observations include, for example, information on the scale of differences in working methods between different employees, which translates directly into their productivity. Here, an appropriate response may be e.g. additional training of selected employees. Other quick wins may concern e.g. minor changes related to the arrangement or transport of semi-finished products, introduction of better labelling or minor adjustments to procedures. The initiator of such changes is usually a lean manager or shift manager.

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2. Optimisation of the production process

Other changes made on the basis of information about the location and movement of employees usually require a more systematic approach and deeper reflection.

One of the most common applications of a system such as Indoorway is to understand productivity at different stages of the production process. With the data on how many workers and for how long were involved in particular production nests and knowing the time of execution of orders, production managers and the financial department can analyse this data in terms of the produced assortment and on this basis improve the organisation of work or allocation of resources in the stages which are less efficient. As a result, costs can be reduced, e.g. through:

• reducing the loss of Expectations, by increasing the number of staff in places where bottlenecks arise due to shortages,
• improving the allocation of staff across shifts,
• introducing automation of selected stages of the production process, e.g. by purchasing AGVs.

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3. optimisation of working practices

According to Supply & Demand Chain Executive magazine, the average warehouse worker wastes 6.9 weeks annually on unnecessary movement. Losses from unnecessary employee movement and unnecessary transport in production are also high, and reducing them is one of the priorities of lean manufacturing methodology. Unfortunately, reducing these losses is often a challenge because, until now, it has been difficult to measure their extent and scale. Spaghetti diagrams can be useful for such an application, but they also have a lot of limitations - primarily the limited observation time and the accuracy of the hand-drawn lines, which is low and does not match the world of digital data.

In such a case, a system like RTLS comes in very handy, thanks to which it is possible to generate not only accurate spaghetti diagrams, but also much more useful heat maps showing the movement of employees involved in the production and internal logistics process. Using the real-time solution, for example, it is possible to determine employee activity levels by calculating the number of times a monitored employee has entered a specific zone during a shift. The manager can then view this data in a dedicated analytics report and identify from it:

• the most time-consuming tasks (identified by comparing the activity levels of employees in the selected zones),
• reasons for differences in productivity during a shift and between shifts (based on indicators showing delays, uneven work distribution),
• problems leading to delays and underperformance (not enough staff working one shift, etc.).

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Summary
The main advantage of RTLS over current practices leading to process optimisation is the ability to base decisions on numbers and not just observations. Thismakes it very easy to have conversations between different departments and people, especially with the management responsible for budgets. Otherwise you end up with the boss saying: "If we have data, let's look at the data. But if we only have opinions, let's agree that I am always right".

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Want to find out more? Visit the Indoorway solution page and see where the technology for asset movement location and process monitoring is performing well, or email us at indoorway@aiut.com.