Stefan Schwab is CEO of Enlighted. Enlighted is part of Building Robotics, Inc., a Siemens company.
The world’s buildings are undergoing a revolution. From schools to hospitals to offices, the Internet of Things (IoT) makes it possible for buildings to be more efficient and sustainable. Intelligent lighting has proven to be particularly effective, helping organizations to reduce their energy emissions and electricity spend by tuning lighting use to the exact needs of the occupants, taking concrete steps toward ESG goals and reducing impacts to the environment.
Intelligent lighting control and modern building IoT infrastructures can immediately improve sustainability and reduce energy and heating costs. But what if intelligent lighting could also enable new use cases and expanded IoT applications by leveraging the same sensor technologies and wireless grid networks? Smart lighting lays the foundation for businesses to implement real-time location services (RTLS), increasing the value of their overall investment and delivering greater operational gains.
How does it work? The same sensors within lighting fixtures that detect movement for occupancy-based lighting and temperature control can also be enabled to detect movement of people and things within spaces. Such an RTLS solution can then track critical resources including assets, inventory and people in workspaces. Organizations that deploy RTLS can analyze and optimize the movement of people and assets within workplaces, increasing productivity and driving further improvements to energy efficiency.
Lighting-based RTLS solutions offer significant opportunities across sectors and with many use cases. For the past five years, I’ve helped large enterprises transition from basic smart lighting systems to the more overarching benefits delivered by IoT technologies, including RTLS. These transitions often feature improved workflows as companies gain knowledge of how occupants interact within their spaces and with their colleagues.
Understanding Lighting-Based RTLS
Intelligent lighting refers to a network of LED lights fitted with sensors, allowing them to detect a range of activities and factors for automated, occupancy-based controls and to produce data analytic insights. RTLS further connects building infrastructure, turning every tagged asset in a workspace into a data point that can inform better decision making. According to recent market research, the RTLS market will grow to $12.7 billion by 2026 as more organizations recognize the opportunity to improve the well-being of their employees and improve asset management.
Organizations use RTLS to identify individual assets or people and follow their locations and movements within a defined area. For large corporations or manufacturers, that area could be an office or a warehouse; for a hospital, it could be a specific wing or floor; and depending on resources, RTLS could even encompass an entire building.
RTLS uses sensors and tags (a small device attached to assets that communicates with the network of sensors) to deliver a constant stream of data to a central system of hardware and software. For tracking personnel, badges and wristbands provide the same function as tags. This raw data is processed and available through displays and dashboards, making it possible to immediately identify the location of a requested asset. RTLS applications can also provide rich workflow functions, with triggering events and alerts that guide the operations of staff for greater efficiency.
RTLS Best Practices
The most significant challenge when implementing RTLS is integrating the new technology with existing workflows, tools and systems. Executives and facilities managers should consider RTLS to be additive to their existing solutions, rather than a replacement. Careful integration planning before implementation can ensure that these valuable tools fit together smoothly.
Business leaders must consider how RTLS will integrate with human workflows and activities. Change management requires extensive communication. By taking time to connect and engage with those whose workflows will be affected, they can ensure the change leads to positive results rather than friction or pushback.
The following best practices can increase the benefits of a lighting based RTLS:
• Focus on desired outcomes: To derive the most value from RTLS, an organization must understand what processes to improve. A clearly defined outcome could be to reduce the time staff spends looking for equipment, or to reduce bottlenecks for a critical workflow. Setting the goal in advance allows the business to apply data to the problem, instead of collecting data and then looking for a problem to solve.
• Think big and start small: One advantage of leveraging a lighting based RTLS system is that once the building infrastructure is in place, companies can select a department, assets and workflows to improve. Building on early successes, they can then expand to include new assets and more complex interactions.
• Plan for effective alerts and responses: RTLS can prove especially valuable when generating alerts or notifications for predetermined events. For example, RTLS can notify facilities managers when a highly sensitive asset has left a designated area, or when the facility is low on a specific resource. But these alerts must be carefully designed to avoid alert fatigue or missed opportunities.
Broad Business Impacts Across Industries
The use cases for RTLS are broad and many, with new uses being continuously launched as visualizations and applications for RTLS data mature over time.
• Healthcare: Improving patient care and reducing operating costs are key KPIs for hospitals. An RTLS system can easily help nurses locate high value assets quickly, allowing them to focus on patient care. These asset-tracking RTLS systems also prevent lost or stolen equipment, with bottom line impact.
• Warehouse: In warehouses, RTLS can have a tangible impact on employee efficiency and safety. By using time and motion data to optimize routes and processes, operations managers can reduce time to perform tasks and lessen the risk of potentially dangerous collisions. RTLS can also make it easier to track mobile assets, such as forklifts, for more efficient deployments.
• Education: Typically, on restricted budgets, schools and universities that invest in high-value lab, sporting or audio-visual equipment can leverage RTLS to ensure that these assets are properly accounted for and secured.
The industry applications for RTLS are endless. As business and facility leaders consider how to increase productivity and make their physical spaces safer and more efficient in 2023, leveraging intelligent lighting as the basis of RTLS applications should be a top consideration.
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