Industry Solutions

Manufacturing
RTLS & Safety Solutions

Real-time safety and asset visibility for smart manufacturing.

Modern factories run complex, tightly timed processes with people, machines, forklifts and materials all moving at high speed. GridRTLS uses UWB indoor positioning and GPS outdoors to give manufacturers real‑time visibility of workers, vehicles, tools and WIP, helping reduce accidents, eliminate search time and support lean production.

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Manufacturing plants are busy, multi‑layered environments. There are production lines, assembly areas, warehouses, test labs, tool rooms, maintenance shops and loading bays, often spread across several buildings and outdoor yards. Forklifts, AGVs and tuggers share aisles with pedestrians; temporary storage areas appear and disappear as orders change.

Traditional systems like barcode scans, paper travellers and fixed CCTV provide only snapshots. They cannot tell supervisors exactly where operators are working, which pallet is still waiting at a buffer, or how close forklifts are coming to pedestrians at any moment. When a safety incident occurs, reconstructing who was involved and how material moved through the plant can be difficult.

GridRTLS deploys UWB anchors and wireless beacons across the shopfloor and warehouses, with wearable tags for workers and rugged tags for forklifts, AGVs, tools, pallets and containers. Indoors, the system typically achieves around 30 cm accuracy in open conditions with update rates from 1–10 Hz, suitable for collision‑avoidance and precise zone control.

Outdoors, GPS / RTK devices extend tracking to yards, loading docks and inter‑building routes.

On a live map, supervisors see the location and status of workers, vehicles and assets in real time. Geofences protect dangerous areas, man‑down and SOS alerts protect lone workers, and analytics show bottlenecks, travel paths and utilisation patterns. Integrations with MES, WMS, ERP and safety systems turn location data into a foundation for continuous improvement and digital‑twin initiatives.

📊 Key stats for this industry

Typical Plant Coverage: 20,000–150,000 m²
Concurrent Workforce Tracked: 100–2,000 personnel
Tagged Assets & Vehicles: 500–10,000 assets
Typical Indoor Accuracy: <30 cm

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Operational challenges

Limited real-time visibility of workers and vehicles

Supervisors often cannot see exactly where operators, maintenance staff and forklifts are working. This makes it hard to enforce safe zones, avoid congestion and coordinate responses during incidents.

Forklift, AGV and pedestrian collision risk

Mobile equipment operates in narrow aisles, intersections and blind corners. Mirrors and floor markings are not enough to prevent near‑misses and collisions, especially in noisy or low‑visibility areas.

Time lost searching for tools, pallets and WIP

Operators and planners spend time looking for missing pallets, trolleys, jigs and tools. Misplaced items disrupt flow, cause line stops and complicate root‑cause analyses.

Manual tracking of WIP and material flow

Barcode and RFID scans only record material at fixed checkpoints. Between scans, it is difficult to know where orders actually are, how long they wait at each buffer and which route they followed.

Ensuring contractor and maintenance safety

Maintenance teams and contractors work in high‑risk areas such as equipment pits, overhead platforms, test cells and electrical rooms. Without accurate location and man‑down alerts, response to incidents can be delayed.

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Business drivers

Reduce accidents and safety incidents

Real-time location, proximity alerts and geofencing around hazardous areas help prevent person–vehicle collisions and unauthorised access to dangerous zones.

Increase OEE and reduce downtime

Faster location of tools and WIP, better coordination of forklifts and AGVs, and clearer visibility of bottlenecks all support higher throughput and fewer unplanned stops.

Optimise material flow and inventory buffers

Continuous tracking of pallets, containers and trolleys provides accurate dwell‑time and route data, feeding lean initiatives and digital‑twin models.

Strengthen traceability and auditability

Historical movement records for people, vehicles and material support internal investigations, customer audits and compliance with industry standards.

📜 Regulations & safety expectations

Manufacturing plants must comply with occupational safety rules, machine‑safety standards and, in many cases, specific industry regulations (e.g. automotive, electronics, food). RTLS does not replace lockout/tagout, guarding or other controls, but it strengthens them with verifiable location and exposure data.

When production involves explosive atmospheres or harsh conditions, intrinsically safe and rugged hardware is required. GridRTLS offers UWB anchors and tags with industrial‑grade housings (IP66–IP67) and wide operating temperature ranges suitable for demanding environments. Location data should be managed with clear governance on access and retention, in line with corporate policies and local privacy laws.

🧩 Typical RTLS use cases

Common positioning and tracking scenarios for this industry.

Shopfloor Worker Tracking & Safety

Production operators, technicians and visitors wear RTLS tags on the shopfloor. Supervisors can see live headcount by line and zone, receive alerts when people enter restricted areas, and use movement history for incident investigations and continuous‑improvement projects.

Environment: indoor
Accuracy: 0.3–1 m to distinguish workstations, aisles and restricted zones.
Update rate: 1–3 s for personnel tracking.
Tracked objects: personnel, visitors_contractors

Typical integrations: Access control, HSE / safety systems, MES, CCTV / VMS.

Forklift & AGV Collision Avoidance

UWB devices mounted on forklifts, AGVs and other mobile equipment continuously measure distance to wearable tags and other vehicles. When the distance falls below configurable thresholds, audible and visual alarms warn both driver and pedestrian and events are logged.

Environment: mixed
Accuracy: <30 cm for close‑range proximity; 1–3 m for general tracking.
Update rate: 0.5–1 s for proximity alerts.
Tracked objects: personnel, vehicles, mobile_equipment

Typical integrations: Fleet‑management systems, traffic‑control logic, PLC / SCADA where appropriate, CCTV / VMS.

WIP, Pallet & Container Tracking

Tags on pallets, stillages, trolleys and containers provide continuous location and dwell‑time information. Planners can see exactly where each order is, how long it waits at buffers, and which route it took through the plant.

Environment: indoor
Accuracy: 0.5–3 m for assets within aisles, buffers and storage areas.
Update rate: 10–30 s, optimised for asset movement speed and battery life.
Tracked objects: mobile_equipment, tools_pallets, materials_inventory

Typical integrations: MES, WMS, ERP, production scheduling systems, quality and traceability databases.

Maintenance & Inspection with Smart Helmets

Maintenance and reliability teams working in pits, rooftops, test cells or noisy areas wear smart helmets with integrated UWB + GPS, man‑down detection and SOS buttons. Their location and alarms are shown in real time, and events can automatically trigger related camera views and notifications.

Environment: mixed
Accuracy: 0.3–1 m in high‑risk maintenance zones such as conveyors, furnaces and test bays.
Update rate: 1–2 s while maintenance work is active.
Tracked objects: personnel, mobile_equipment

Typical integrations: CMMS / maintenance‑management systems, safety / HSE platforms, CCTV / video linkage, voice communication systems.

📋 RTLS requirements for this industry

Typical coverage: Production halls, assembly lines, warehouses, quality labs, maintenance shops, utilities areas and outdoor yards or loading zones — typically 20,000–150,000 m² per plant, sometimes more across multiple buildings.
Personnel scale: From 100–500 tracked people for a single plant up to 2,000+ workers, engineers, supervisors and contractors across large multi‑building campuses and multi‑shift operations.
Assets & vehicles: Dozens to hundreds of forklifts, AGVs, tuggers and other mobile machines, plus hundreds to thousands of tagged pallets, stillages, containers, tools and mobile racks.
Environment constraints: Manufacturing environments feature metal racks, machinery, moving obstacles, temperature variations and RF noise from Wi‑Fi and industrial equipment. RTLS hardware must offer strong multipath resistance, IP66–IP67 housings for harsh areas, and reliable operation across a wide temperature range. UWB’s wideband pulses provide high accuracy and good robustness even around metal structures; GPS / RTK devices complement coverage outdoors in yards and between buildings.

🛡️ Safety & reliability expectations

Safety‑related use cases such as collision avoidance and man‑down alerts require sub‑meter accuracy, update intervals of 0.5–2 seconds and high system uptime (target ≥99.9% during operating hours). UWB anchors and tags typically reach <30 cm accuracy in open line‑of‑sight conditions with update rates up to 10 Hz.

Wearable tags usually last 1–3 months per charge at 1 Hz reporting; asset tags and battery‑powered beacons can run for years at lower reporting intervals, suitable for long‑term use on racks, tools and fixed reference points.

System design should include redundancy, device‑health monitoring and clear arrangements for issuing, charging and maintaining tags across shifts.

🛰️ RTLS solutions for this industry

📦 Devices and infrastructure used in this industry

SN2 UWB PoE Anchor

The SN2 is an industrial‑grade UWB positioning anchor designed for high‑accuracy real‑time location systems. It supports Standard PoE or 12–24 V DC power, delivers sub‑meter performance (<30 cm LoS), and features an IP66 enclosure for harsh indoor/outdoor environments. Multiple mounting options (ceiling, wall, pole clamp) make deployment easy in factories, warehouses, and tunnels. Optional 4G/Wi‑Fi backhaul, AI video add‑on, and sound‑light alarm extend the anchor’s capability for safety and analytics. (Actual performance depends on anchor density, layout, and site RF conditions.)