Five Critical Success Factors For Real-time Location System Success
Real-time location systems (RTLS) are an increasingly important strategic capability for a variety of business applications. RTLS allows organizations to efficiently identify and track the location of supplies, personnel, equipment and other items in real-time, as a cost-effective operational management tool.
With the success early adopters have had with RTLS, the question is not whether to implement, but which technology is best suited for the many applications that can benefit from location awareness. An Awarepoint white paper, Considering a Real-time Location System? First Consider the 5 Critical Success Factors, can help maximize your return on investment and ensure long term success of your RTLS investment.
"The implementation of RTLS technology should pay for itself as a result of shrinking the incidence of misplaced equipment, decreased rental costs and increased utilization of equipment," stated Jason Howe, CEO of Awarepoint Corporation. The five critical factors outlined in the white paper to obtain maximum benefit include:
1. Enterprise–wide coverage – since assets and people move throughout your entire enterprise, to achieve
maximum benefit your RTLS deployment must cover every square inch of your enterprise.
2. Location accuracy – to affect the highest impact for your strategic initiatives, room level accuracy is a clear
critical success factor.
3. Installation and maintenance – a minimally invasive solution that does not compromise your existing IT
network, does not interrupt daily business operations and can be installed in day or weeks, is vital. Maintenance
impact for hospital staff should be considered as well – it shouldn't take a team of IT professionals to keep the
system running.
4. Interoperability - your RTLS should be supported by standards-based technology and should offer an open
Application Programming Interface (API) so that its capable of providing location and status data to both your endusers
and to third party applications.
5. Low Risk - you should partner with a vendor that is vested in your success. Look for a flexible business model
that doesn't require a large capital purchase or long-term contractual commitment, and allows you to easily expand
assets as needed.
Added Howe, "In hospitals particularly, RTLS can play an important role in automation of common tasks – improving operational efficiency, increasing patient flow and enhancing patient safety. Knowing the location, status and movement of equipment and people can be used to improve hospital business processes and asset utilization, reduce capital expense and rental costs and improve staff productivity."
The full white paper Considering a Real-time Location System? First Consider the 5 Critical Success Factors can be downloaded free at http://www.awarepoint.com/solutions_performance.html
About Awarepoint
Awarepoint's Active RFID technologies and real time location systems (RTLSs) include its real time awareness
platform, firmware, RFID tags, sensors, and bridges. Awarepoint's technologies collect raw sensor data and transform
that data into high-value positioning information that can be used to add location awareness to a variety of healthcare,
manufacturing, security and other applications. Requiring no hard wiring, Awarepoint's "plug and track" network is a fully
managed service, including hardware, software, remote monitoring and maintenance. The company is headquartered
in San Diego, California and serves hospitals across the United States through a national sales and operations
workforce. Track us down at www.awarepoint.com
SOURCE: Awarepoint