Boosting Manufacturing Efficiency with IoT Asset Tracking

National Manufacturing Week is a time to celebrate the innovation and resilience of the manufacturing sector. In an industry defined by precision, efficiency, and the constant pursuit of improvement, staying ahead of the curve is not just an advantage—it’s a necessity. Today, manufacturers face growing pressures to optimize workflows, reduce costs, and increase visibility across their entire supply chain. This is where the Internet of Things (IoT) is making a transformative impact, and Link Labs is at the forefront of this revolution.

For manufacturers, knowing where your assets are, what they are doing, and how they are performing is critical. From raw materials and work-in-progress (WIP) to finished goods and the tools used to create them, every item plays a role in the intricate dance of production. Misplaced equipment, lost inventory, and inefficient processes can lead to costly delays and operational bottlenecks. Real-time asset tracking technology provides the visibility and data needed to solve these challenges, turning complex operations into streamlined, intelligent systems.

The High Cost of Inefficiency in Manufacturing

Before diving into the solution, it’s important to understand the problems. In a sprawling manufacturing facility, the time spent searching for tools, components, or transport equipment quickly adds up. A study by the MPI Group found that manufacturing employees spend, on average, over two hours per week searching for lost or misplaced assets. This lost time translates directly into reduced productivity and increased labor costs.

Beyond lost time, manufacturers grapple with several other key challenges:

• Inventory Management: Inaccurate inventory counts can lead to stockouts, overstocking, and production delays. Manual tracking methods are often slow, error-prone, and fail to provide the real-time data needed for just-in-time production environments.
• Workflow Bottlenecks: Without a clear view of how assets move through the production line, identifying and resolving bottlenecks is a difficult task. Managers often rely on guesswork rather than data to understand where and why delays occur.
• Theft and Loss: High-value tools, equipment, and finished goods are susceptible to theft or being misplaced. The cost of replacing these assets, coupled with the resulting production downtime, can be substantial.
• Lack of Visibility: In a complex operation, assets are constantly in motion—moving between workstations, storage areas, and even different facilities. A lack of seamless indoor and outdoor visibility makes it nearly impossible to maintain a complete operational picture.

How IoT Asset Tracking Transforms Manufacturing

IoT-based asset tracking provides a powerful solution to these long-standing challenges. By attaching small, battery-powered tags to assets, manufacturers can gain unprecedented, real-time visibility into their entire operation. This isn’t just about knowing where something is; it’s about understanding how it’s being used, how it moves through your facility, and how you can optimize its role in your workflow.

Link Labs’ AirFinder platform is designed to deliver this level of insight with a unique combination of affordability, accuracy, and scalability. It provides a comprehensive solution that bridges the gap between indoor and outdoor tracking, creating a single, unified view of all your critical assets.

The Power of AirFinder: A Unified Tracking Ecosystem

The AirFinder platform is built to be a complete, end-to-end solution. It combines different location technologies to provide the best possible performance for any given situation, all managed through a single, easy-to-use interface.

Here’s a breakdown of the key components:

• Asset Tags: These small, durable devices are attached to everything you want to track, from toolboxes and forklifts to pallets and individual products. Link Labs offers a wide variety of tags, including those with sensors for temperature, humidity, and shock.
• Location Infrastructure: Inside a facility, a network of low-cost access points and location beacons works together to determine the precise location of each tag. Outdoors, the tags seamlessly switch to using GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular networks.
• Cloud Platform & UI: All the data collected from the tags is sent to the Link Labs cloud, where it is processed and presented in an intuitive dashboard. Users can view real-time asset locations on a map, analyze historical data, set up alerts, and generate detailed reports.
• Included Integrations: With API and MQTT integrations included, you can sync your data from Link Labs into the operating platform your operators use on a daily basis.

Key Differentiators: Why Link Labs Stands Out

While many companies offer asset tracking, Link Labs’ approach is built to solve the specific, enterprise-grade challenges of modern manufacturing.

1. Unprecedented Location Capability: No single tracking technology is perfect for every scenario. That’s why AirFinder uniquely combines Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Ultra-Wideband (UWB), GPS, Wi-Fi sniffing, and Cell-ID into one seamless platform. This allows you to choose the right level of accuracy for each use case, from GPS outdoors to room-level location with BLE to sub-meter precision with UWB.
2. Lowest Total Cost of Ownership: Affordability is crucial for large-scale deployments. Link Labs drives down costs in several ways:
3. • Long Battery Life: Patented Extreme Low Energy (XLE®) technology means tags can last for years, not months, reducing replacement and maintenance costs.
   • Low-Cost Infrastructure: The indoor infrastructure is simple to install, often without needing specialized contractors or integration with corporate IT networks.
   • Efficient Data Handling: By processing location data at the edge (on the tag itself), AirFinder dramatically reduces the amount of data sent to the cloud, lowering data transport costs by up to 1000x compared to other systems.
3. Massive Use Case Extensibility: A factory isn’t just one environment; it’s many. You might need hyper-accurate tracking for work-in-progress, simple “is it here?” tracking for tools, and temperature monitoring for sensitive materials. AirFinder supports hundreds of off-the-shelf BLE sensor tags, allowing you to tailor the solution to dozens of different use cases with a single infrastructure.

Real-World Applications in Manufacturing

Let’s explore how Link Labs’ technology solves practical, everyday problems on the factory floor.

Work-in-Process (WIP) Tracking

Challenge: Manually tracking components and sub-assemblies as they move through production is time-consuming and often inaccurate, leading to delays and confusion.

Solution: By attaching AirFinder UWB tags to WIP assets, manufacturers can achieve 30 cm accuracy. The system can automatically track how long an item spends at each workstation, identify bottlenecks in real-time, and provide a detailed history of its journey through the production line. This data helps managers optimize workflows, reallocate resources, and improve production forecasting.

Tool and Equipment Management

Challenge: Valuable tools and equipment, like torque wrenches, calibration devices, or forklifts, are frequently misplaced. The time spent searching for them wastes labor hours and can bring production to a halt.

Solution: Placing small, long-life BLE tags on tools allows workers to locate them instantly using a mobile app or web dashboard. You can create geofences around tool cribs or work areas and receive alerts if a tool is removed without authorization. This not only reduces search time but also prevents theft and improves accountability. The SuperTag, acting as a gateway in a “tool cage” scenario, can automatically maintain an inventory of all tagged tools within its range, updating their status to “checked out” when they leave the area.

Yard and Trailer Management

Challenge: In large manufacturing facilities, managing the flow of incoming and outgoing trailers is a major logistical puzzle. Knowing which trailer is in which dock, what it’s carrying, and how long it has been there is essential for efficient loading and unloading.

Solution: The AirFinder SuperTag is perfect for this. Placed on a trailer, it provides seamless indoor and outdoor tracking. Geofences can be set up around the yard, loading docks, and parking areas to automate arrival and departure logs. This eliminates manual check-ins, reduces driver wait times, and ensures the right trailer is always at the right place at the right time. You can even monitor dwell times to identify underutilized yard space or trailers that need to be moved.

Cold Chain and Environmental Monitoring

Challenge: For manufacturers dealing with temperature-sensitive materials or products, maintaining the cold chain is non-negotiable. A temperature excursion can ruin an entire batch, leading to significant financial losses.

Solution: Temperature monitoring in the facility, as well as over the road during the entire supply chain process can ensure that compliance is maintained.

Step into the Future of Manufacturing

The manufacturing landscape is more competitive than ever. The ability to leverage data for smarter, faster, and more efficient operations is what separates the leaders from the laggards. IoT asset tracking is no longer a futuristic concept; it’s a proven, accessible technology that delivers a tangible return on investment.

By providing a single, powerful platform for both indoor and outdoor asset visibility, Link Labs empowers manufacturers to take control of their operations. From optimizing intricate production workflows to preventing the loss of critical equipment, our solutions are designed to address the real-world challenges you face every day.

Ready to see how real-time asset intelligence can transform your factory floor? Contact us today for a demo and discover how AirFinder can help you build a more connected, efficient, and profitable manufacturing operation.