Real-time location systems (RTLS) are anincreasingly important strategic capability for a variety of businessapplications. RTLS allows organizations to efficiently identify and trackthe location of supplies, personnel, equipment and other items inreal-time, as a cost-effective operational management tool.
With the success early adopters have had with RTLS, the question is notwhether to implement, but which technology is best suited for the manyapplications that can benefit from location awareness. An Awarepoint whitepaper, "Considering a Real-time Location System? First Consider the 5Critical Success Factors," can help maximize your return on investment andensure long-term success of your RTLS investment.
"The implementation of RTLS technology should pay for itself as a result ofshrinking the incidence of misplaced equipment, decreased rental costs andincreased utilization of equipment," stated Jason Howe, CEO of AwarepointCorporation.
The five critical factors outlined in the white paper to obtain maximumbenefit include:
1. Enterprise-wide coverage -- since assets and people move throughout yourentire enterprise, to achieve maximum benefit your RTLS deployment mustcover every square inch of your enterprise.
2. Location accuracy -- to affect the highest impact for your strategicinitiatives, room level accuracy is a clear critical success factor.
3. Installation and maintenance -- a minimally invasive solution that doesnot compromise your existing IT network, does not interrupt daily businessoperations and can be installed in days or weeks, is vital. Maintenanceimpact for hospital staff should be considered as well -- it shouldn't takea team of IT professionals to keep the system running.
4. Interoperability -- your RTLS should be supported by standards-basedtechnology and should offer an open Application Programming Interface (API)so that it's capable of providing location and status data to both yourend-users and to third party applications.
5. Low Risk -- you should partner with a vendor that is vested in yoursuccess. Look for a flexible business model that doesn't require a largecapital purchase or long-term contractual commitment, and allows you toeasily expand assets as needed.
Added Howe, "In hospitals particularly, RTLS can play an important role inautomation of common tasks -- improving operational efficiency, increasingpatient flow and enhancing patient safety. Knowing the location, status andmovement of equipment and people can be used to improve hospital businessprocesses and asset utilization, reduce capital expense and rental costsand improve staff productivity."
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