Simplifying Asset Management with Geolocation

The Internet of Things (IoT) presents an abundance of opportunities across markets from factories, retail, and worksites to offices and homes. In fact, McKinsey’s Global Institute predicts IoT will have an economic impact between $4 and $11 trillion by 2025. One area gaining momentum is asset tracking, as businesses invest in smart technologies to better monitor goods and increase productivity and profitability. More devices are expected to connect to the internet as organizations continue to shift toward a more IoT-focused business strategy, and those devices will require some form of localization capability either at the point of install or through an asset’s lifecycle. Asset management solutions through geolocation will play a critical role in connecting these devices and providing precise location management.

Source: Semtech

Existing asset management and tracking solutions that use components such as GPS or Wi-Fi are complex in design and high in cost. The high power consumption of GPS devices also forces customers to frequently replace batteries and manage upkeep, which is a costly and time-consuming operation and in many cases is nearly impossible due to assets existing in hard-to-reach areas. Working through a manual registration process for GPS sensors also opens the door to human error where logs and trackers need to be manually updated.

Long-range, low-power, IoT-connected solutions which incorporate geolocation capabilities can address these challenges head-on and help customers develop and deploy affordable and simplified asset management tools. Combining the Cloud with geolocation technologies means devices can automatically locate, track and monitor physical assets such as equipment, product, vehicles, and people. From transportation, logistics, and retail to agriculture, healthcare, and food services – a wide variety of industrial enterprises can benefit from this technology.  

Source: Semtech

When businesses have the insights and technology to help them understand where highly valued assets are on location or in transit – e.g. expensive construction equipment on a job site or perishable goods being shipped across the country or globe – there are many benefits to reap by automating manual processes, such as loss prevention and an increase in job efficiency. Solutions with an innovative device-to-cloud architecture that enable customers to achieve an ideal balance between power consumption and accuracy are critical in solving business needs. With such important data at hand provided by these solutions, businesses can transform this information into actionable insights quickly.

With long-range, low-power IoT-connected geolocation solutions, asset tracking can be a simple Cloud API that can be easily integrated with LPWAN networks and application servers to enable location estimation with connected devices. Not only does this drastically simplify the management of endpoint solutions, but geolocation solutions like this can help to significantly reduce power consumption.