It's frustrating. Not being able to find things when you need them, that is. And it happens in most businesses, everyday. Time searching for things is time not spent doing the work and adding the value we're there to provide. Nurses not providing patient care. Builders delayed working on a job. Meetings or events running late or cancelled.
It costs us huge numbers of hours every year. Not to mention the over-investment we make in equipment because we buy more to ensure we can find something when it's needed most.
Time to look again
The technologies used to track and find things have been around for a while now. We expect to be able to find out where our parcels are when they're on their way. And warehouses would be lost without ways to keep track of their stock in real time. But these systems are the domain of experts and often need to be customised to very specific needs.
It's a bit like home entertainment systems used to be. At one time you needed to be a 'cable whisperer' in order to get fantastic sound all around your house. Or you'd get a specialist in and they'd wire your home up with speakers, zones, some sort of audio/video distribution system.... and so on. With eye-wateringly high bills and you just knew that if anything went wrong you'd be up for more.
Then along came companies like Sonos, Amazon and Google who changed all that. With pretty darned good little speakers that networked easily and big ones that could dance with your huge TV too. Now everyday people can install sound all around their homes controlled from their phones or even with their voices (until they get fed up of Alexa butting into every conversation).
Spotto. Asset Tracking. Made simple.
Asset tracking needs that same revolution. If your organisation can cut wasted time and needless over-investment in equipment, you'll become more efficient and sustainable by doing more with what you've already got. But you don't want to pay for experts. You want good results without paying the earth, and you want to do it yourself.
That's the revolution Spotto's part of right now. If you want to set up real-time tracking of any of your assets (or visitors, or staff) around your buildings, and to give your users a really simple way to search for things that's as easy to use as a Google search bar, then it's worth taking a look.
We've made readers small, simple and low cost so you can put them in any zone you want monitored. Just plug one in, name the zone it looks after and Spotto will start seeing it. Then put asset tags on any item you want to track, spend a few seconds telling Spotto about them and they'll now be tracked wherever there's a reader.
We've seen a whole hospital set up for tracking by non-IT staff in just a couple of days. And as they've learned more about how the readers perform they've moved them around to best suit their needs. It's that simple. Now their users are able to find any tracked asset immediately, leading to over 30% time saving each time equipment is requested.
What's the catch?
There really isn't one. The beauty of consumerisation is that it takes much of the risk out of what was a 'big deal' before. You can start small, prove the use case and then look to spread out if it works for you. If it doesn't you've not lost much time or money in the process.
There are countless instances where knowing where things or people are right now would improve business life and responsiveness. Nurses able to find the pumps or lifters they need. Building managers knowing where key equipment is when it's needed. IT staff able to track the whereabouts of their PCs and peripherals. Organisations knowing which hot desking areas are being used at any time and where people have checked in to.
It's only the beginning
What's really exciting is that this IoT-based tracking is just the start of the journey. The same network of readers also carries sensor data from the tags (like temperature, light/dark, movement, attitude (upright or not) and suchlike) so you're able to create yet more interesting solutions. And whilst indoor location gives you immediate benefit, the combination of always-on, seamless indoor and outdoor tracking and sensing at a reasonable price isn't so far away. With an infrastructure like Spotto's which can take inputs from any type of sensor, you'll be ready for whatever comes next.
Cometh the hour....
Whilst it would be wildly presumptuous to claim that Spotto is technology riding to the rescue, it's fair to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has forced most organisations to re-assess their use of assets, and to focus on efficiency and sustainability. There are few assets as valuable as time. If you'd like to discuss how we could help you to do more with less, we'd be happy to talk. Book a free, no-obligation express chat at a time that suits you.