A Business Case for Innovative Technology

Some very interesting technology is being used to make extraordinary advances, with just a bit of creativity.

Retailers have embraced the technology for several years. With it, customers can navigate with turn-by-turn directions to specific merchandise on the showroom floor, or to find restrooms, cash registers and food. They can also receive instant notifications as they pass items denoted in personalized wish lists, or items that are on sale. Think of the benefits to a retailer and to their patrons when the technology notices a shopper walking by their store and convinces them to stop in for the latest and greatest wares, or to get a special discount. The result is it keeps the shopper in the store longer and ultimately, increasing the amount of money spent in their physical locations.

Similarly, most major hotel chains have implemented the technology designed to perform as an ‘e-concierge.’ Upon downloading the hotel loyalty app, a guest has access to local special offers, guided tour of the property and maps of points of interest while they walk through the lobby. Recent developments include virtual keys for the guest to enter their room and notification to the concierge and front desk advising them of a guest’s arrival. As the guest approaches the front desk, the assistant can greet them by name and without looking up guest information, provide personalization to their room such as additional towels, blankets or preferred drinks in the minibar or a wakeup call. As with retail, this technology and attention to the guest intensifies their experience and loyalty to the hotel brand.

A creative use comes from its deployment on Korean commuter trains. To ensure the safety of pregnant women riding on the train and provide them with a comfortable journey, the technology flashes as soon as they step onto the train. The flashing indicates to other passengers that this pregnant woman needs a vacant seat. It continues to flash until she sits down.

Most airlines and airports have jumped on the personalization bandwagon to keep their passengers in the know. The travelers use a downloadable app at most airports that notifies them when their bags are loaded on a particular flight or is nearing arrival to baggage claim. The technology shares updates about gate changes or flight delays or providing connecting flight and baggage claim information to reduce the confusion when deboarding.

At your next professional sporting event, the technology can tell you where you are and how to get to the closest restroom, beverage or brat stand. At the same time, it tells management where the attendee traffic moves over the course of the event, providing them with data to continually improve the experience for the attendees.

Or maybe a simpler example of the technology can be attached to your keychain, so when you misplace it at home or the office, you can quickly find your keys with the use of your cell phone.

What is it?

We are talking about beacon technology. A beacon is a Bluetooth device that broadcasts a signal. Cell phones and other devices pick up the signal and the magic starts from there. From a consumer perspective, the use of beacons is quite impressive and very helpful. But how can manufacturers boast powerful benefits from this same technology?

Providing a simplified and informative experience to its users, beacon technology, such as Beacon-Trak®, transforms the individual’s experience by becoming a shop supervisor’s virtual assistant and best friend. Where ERP systems have been used to run reports to help shop floor professionals know what happened in the past, Beacon-Trak is now their personal, real-time information assistant, who when in roaming mode is constantly filtering the data based on the proximity and location of the professional to provide a look into what’s happening now within their proximity. That might mean knowing the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) of the machines they are near, or the jobs running on those machines, who is running the machines and whether they are running behind schedule. It could also bring up the machine’s dispatch list so the supervisor is aware of what jobs are coming up on the schedule.

What does this mean to the shop floor professional? Quite simply, actionable information available at the point of need to proactively resolve issues before they turn into problems.

How do they do it?

In the earlier examples of beacon technology, the beacon was assigned to a unique space, individual, etc., that would act as a transmitter. After that, interest stakeholders, i.e. shoppers, guests, passengers, etc., received important information anytime a stakeholder approached a transmitter. Beacon-Trak was designed to respond when the stakeholder (manufacturing professional) approaches any transmitter (individual machine). Beacon-Trak takes over like a highly aware personal assistant, tirelessly looking for and bringing relevant location-specific production statuses and throughput information to the shop floor professional so they can perform their job even better, which means running the shop floor more efficiently than ever before and does so by bringing awareness to changing conditions at any moment in time.

As those stakeholders stroll around the plant floor with their handheld computer device, they receive proximity-based updates from machine-to-machine, department-to-department. Take for instance the shop floor supervisor. Throughout the day, that person is responsible for knowing exactly what is happening in each of the work centers in his area. As he moves about the area of brake presses, CNC routers, or CNC milling machines, etc., Beacon-Trak quickly displays in the moment, the work centers in that area, as well as the specialists working them and the jobs they are working on. Beacon-Trak automatically pre-filters the information providing real-time feedback on utilization, efficiency, quality, job status, machine status, OEE and more, through a simple touch screen interface.

Think of the more recent tradition of having a stand-up production meeting with the workers on the shop floor. The meeting is important as it provides the supervisor with the opportunity to set the stage for the day’s production and getting everything started properly. Two unfortunate outcomes of the stand-up meetings. No machines are running and the moment the meeting is done, the best laid plans go awry due to changing priorities, customer needs, etc.

What if the machines could be running and the supervisor simply views their notebook for any jobs running in the red? They don’t need to interrupt those who are running on time, and can go right to the issues that need resolving and strategize on how to solve the issue with the worker one-on-one in the same way as they would the group meeting. The benefits are the machines are running and if an issue comes up anywhere on the shop floor, the supervisors are instantly aware of them without needing to run back to their workstation and run reports to determine if problems exist.

Arming supervisors with the paperless, digital information in their hands, giving them only what they really need and when they need it is a quantum leap for production floor management. Yet the benefits go farther than the shop floor. When in their office or in a production meeting, those individuals have the same real-time information at instant access to know whether jobs are progressing or running slow and need immediate attention. With trend information at their beck and call, they can do quick analysis right from their office, catching and resolve issues before they turn into production or delivery problems.