Prove Real-Time Location and Gate Events in Your Own Facility
Radio behaves differently in every building. This PoC installs the selected technology in one representative zone or gate, measures what it actually achieves against surveyed reference points, and produces a coverage map and infrastructure design — before anyone buys anchors for the whole site.
Assess my site for RTLSTalk to a manufacturing engineerIs this the problem you need to solve?
- Finding a specific pallet, tool or trolley is a search, and the search has a cost.
- Gate events are recorded by a person with a clipboard, when they are recorded at all.
- Assets leave the site and nobody notices until they are needed.
- A previous location project quoted an accuracy that the building never delivered.
Primary buyer: Logistics Manager · Asset Manager · Warehouse Manager · Engineering Manager · IT / OT Manager
What this PoC will prove
Recommended pilot scope
- One representative zone, route or gate — representative meaning difficult, not convenient.
- Selected assets, pallets or forklifts with the agreed tag type.
- The anchors, readers and tags matching the technology under evaluation.
- Defined location events: entry, exit, zone change, dwell.
- Surveyed reference points so accuracy can be measured, not estimated.
What will be live during the PoC
How this PoC runs
Durations are typical, not guaranteed. What extends a schedule: missing or incomplete data, security and network approvals, hardware lead times, sample collection, installation access, the production schedule, ERP test access, and the time your team needs to review results.
No unplanned shutdown is expected. Any installation window or controlled interruption is agreed with you in advance and scheduled around production.
How success will be measured
| Metric | How it is defined | Where the number comes from | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Location accuracy | Deviation between reported and surveyed position, reported as a distribution rather than a single best case. | Sensor, meter or device data | Technical |
| Read rate | Share of tag passes detected at the gate or reference point under normal traffic and speed. | Sensor, meter or device data | Technical |
| Missed and duplicate gate events | Events not recorded, and events recorded twice, over the validation period. | Sensor, meter or device data | Technical |
| Event latency | Time from a physical pass to the event being available, at the 95th percentile. | MSF platform data | Technical |
| Zone transition reliability | Share of zone changes reported correctly, without flapping between adjacent zones. | Sensor, meter or device data | Technical |
| Asset search time | Time to locate a specific asset with the system, versus the observed baseline. | Agreed baseline measurement | Operational |
| Infrastructure coverage | Share of the pilot area meeting the required accuracy, and what full coverage would require. | Sensor, meter or device data | Technical |
Before implementation, MSF and your team agree how each metric is calculated, where the baseline comes from, what data is excluded, and what result supports a rollout decision. This page lists what gets measured; the actual targets belong in the written PoC scope, not in a marketing claim.
What you need to provide
- Layout or CAD drawings where they exist, and the building and racking characteristics.
- The assets to track, and the accuracy the business case actually requires.
- Event rules — what counts as an entry, an exit, a dwell that matters.
- Network and power positions, and access for installation.
Who does what
Meta Smart Factory provides
- Discovery workshop and scope facilitation
- Solution configuration for the agreed scope
- Integration and connection work inside that scope
- MSF hardware listed in the proposal
- Training for the pilot users
- The KPI definitions and validation method
- Issue tracking and support during the pilot
- The final result report and rollout design
- The radio site assessment, calibration and a measured coverage and accuracy map.
- An infrastructure bill of quantities derived from measurements in your building, not from a datasheet.
You provide
- A named business owner and a named technical owner
- Timely access to users, the line, machines and approved systems
- An accurate explanation of the process and the master data
- Network, power, mounting and safety access
- ERP, PLC and vendor documentation, plus the experts who know them
- Representative samples or historical data
- Validation that the baseline is fair
- Feedback and the acceptance decision
- Access for anchor and reader mounting, including at height where needed.
- Normal operating traffic during the validation window — an empty aisle proves nothing.
Defined in the written proposal
- Panel PCs, tablets, servers and GPU servers
- Cameras, lenses, lighting and enclosures
- Scanners, printers, RFID readers, meters and sensors
- Travel, installation, freight, import duty and local electrical work
- Whether hardware is rented or purchased
- Whether any PoC fee is credited against a rollout
Commercial terms, hardware ownership, travel, integration scope and any rollout credit are defined in the written PoC proposal. They are not the same for every product, and this page does not promise them.
What you receive at the end
- Coverage and accuracy map of the pilot area.
- Gate and zone event results under real traffic.
- Infrastructure recommendation with the technology justified by measurement.
- Interference and risk report naming the physical causes found.
- Business-case inputs from the measured search-time and event data.
- Site rollout bill of quantities.
Dependencies, exclusions and limits
This PoC depends on
- Physical access for mounting anchors and readers, sometimes at height.
- The pilot area operating normally during validation, including its worst congestion.
Not included in this PoC
- Site-wide infrastructure installation, which is the rollout.
- Outdoor yard tracking and vehicle telematics unless explicitly scoped.
No accuracy figure is promised in advance. Centimetre-level accuracy is achievable with some technologies in some buildings and not others — metal, liquids, racking density and interference decide it. This PoC exists precisely to measure it on your site before you commit to infrastructure.
Go, adjust or stop — the decision gate
Frequently asked questions
Which RTLS technology do you use?
It depends on what the use case needs and what the building allows — UWB, BLE and RFID have very different accuracy, cost and infrastructure profiles. The site assessment picks the technology; picking it before the assessment is how location projects fail.
Can you guarantee 10 to 30 cm accuracy?
No, and any supplier who does before seeing your building is guessing. Accuracy is a property of the technology, the anchor density and the physical environment together. This PoC measures it against surveyed reference points and reports the distribution, including the bad cases.
How big should the pilot area be?
Big enough to include your hardest conditions — a dense racking aisle, a metal-heavy area, a busy gate. A pilot in an open, empty hall produces a number that will not survive contact with the rest of the plant.
Do we need RTLS if we already scan barcodes?
Often not, and this PoC will say so. Scanning gives you accurate events at known points, which is enough for many flows. RTLS earns its cost where assets move unpredictably and searching for them is a measurable daily loss — which is why search time is on the scorecard.
Related products and PoC programs
Request this Proof of Concept
Tell us the scope you have in mind and we will come back with a written PoC plan: what gets connected, what you provide, how success is measured and what the decision at the end looks like.