Indoor area positioning with NIVY Watch

Indoor positioning is an interesting and in-demand functionality within the corporate environment. This functionality provides companies with many opportunities to improve the efficiency of work processes or other benefits that can be achieved.

However, determining the position in the interior is a more technologically demanding thing. It is because the GPS technology, which is commonly used in outdoor scenarios, does not work indoors.

Therefore, other technologies are used for indoor positioning purposes. Some can identify the exact location (of an employee or thing) in real time. However, they usually require the installation of complicated and expensive infrastructure. But there is an alternative which is extremely easy to setup, and which provides immense value for companies, namely, within Manufacturing, Logistics and Retail sectors.

System of Bluetooth Beacons

NIVY Watch uses a system of simple Bluetooth beacons, which are unimaginably easy to install and operate. Each such device has minimal dimensions (approx. 4×4 cm) and has its own, easily replaceable battery with a lifespan of several years. Therefore, it is enough to place it freely (placing, gluing or otherwise fixing) in a suitable position, from where this Beacon will start working immediately. In the NIVY system, it is possible to define a radius for each beacon, which determines its circular zone. NIVY Watch always detects the presence of a user in the zone of a given beacon. Then it starts automatically recording time and other activities in this zone. The NIVYWear specialized watch operating system takes care of everything, so that it does not disturb the user of the watch at all.

Area and Area Session

The circular character of the beacon zone is a relatively limiting factor if we want to cover a more complex space. The NIVY system therefore makes it possible to define areas that consist of a set of several beacon zones that can follow each other or even partially overlap. In this way, an area of different dimensions and geometric shapes can be laid out.

NIVYWear recognizes such an area whenever a user enters the zone of any of its beacons. As soon as this happens, the system starts the so-called ‘Area Session’ – where all important data related to the work performed by the employee is recorded. Not only time is recorded, but also the number of steps, calories burned, or other data that can be calculated from biometric and other watch sensors.

Also, the user interface of the watch always adapts to the current Area, so as to provide the user with functionality that makes sense for the given Area. The user can thus choose a work activity, or he can choose from predefined short messages always in the context of the given Area.

Instant Data Management

All data from the watch is written to the NIVY DataFactory cloud storage. In this environment, they can be accessed via a web or mobile application. This way a manager has always important information about what is happening in his operation. He can easily find out in which Area individual employees are located and manage them with short messages. He can also look at recent statistics on work activities in individual Areas for the current day / week / month, or other time interval. Thanks to this, the manager has a tool for more efficient management of his branch.

Data analysis

All NIVY Watch devices that are in operation generate a large amount of data describing the work activities of employees. This data can then be analyzed by analytical tools such as Business Intelligence (BI).

Even the data collected from the watch can reveal various defects in the work processes of companies. It is possible to compare the data of the most productive employees with others who have worse results. Or companies can analyze specific Areas from various point of views, which can help them to better understand employees’ habits or other work process characteristics of individuals, or an entire branch/company.

An interesting use-case is the possibility of correlating production data from ERP or other systems with data from watches. In this way, it is possible to better understand the problematic areas and thanks to these findings, to propose a change in work processes. Subsequently, thanks to new data from the watch, to monitor whether the change has fulfilled its purpose.

Conclusion

The analysis of work processes based on indoor positioning is extremely interesting for companies in the field of Manufacturing, Logistics and Retail, in which most work activities take place by workers in an indoor environment. By equipping these workers with specialized NIVY Watch devices in a combination with NIVY Bluetooth beacon system, the company will gain a powerful tool that will allow it to better analyze its work processes, which is always the first prerequisite for their improvements.

And thanks to other capabilities of NIVY Watch, it can become the first necessary step to the company’s work process automation.