Problem: Inability to track equipment and assets that move from location to location. This results in lost assets, as well as inability to productively deploy assets to where they are most needed in real time.
Solution tested: Roambee Asset tracking sensors and beacons, Location monitoring dashboard
Questions to be answered: What items need to be tracked? How will this affect asset productivity? How will this affect operational efficiency? How accurate is the tracking? Are there differences in performance and accuracy due to different connectivity methods? How accurate are these in real time or near real time?
Project Update (January 25, 2019)
The project will start in Q1 2019. An initial pre-pilot test of the RoamBee asset tracking solution, using cellular as the connectivity method, was reasonably accurate. However, battery life was shorter than expected. The actual pilot will be conducted using Narrow Band IoT (NB-IoT) connected tracking devices. NB-IoT connectivity is provided by T-Mobile.
The Department of Public Works has identified two use cases for the pilot:
- Tracking of mechanized equipment (forklifts) that are deployed and move across county facilities and projects
- Tracking of ladders that are located in and around county facilities. These may be inside buildings as well as outside the buildings.
In addition to testing the ability to track assets, we will also be testing and understanding the feasibility of NB-IoT as a connectivity option for asset tracking. If the asset tracking solution supports LoRaWAN, we will be evaluating asset tracking performance against this as well.