CUSTOMERS

Case Studies

“We did look at competitors, but it is not a level playing field; Ubisense are way ahead; on the technology side, they far outweigh other solutions in the market”

Leading Sports Car Manufacturer

Aston Martin

Rising customer expectations and increasingly complex configurations are driving automotive manufacturers to constantly improve operations.

Aston Martin, world renown for performance and precision engineering, turned to Ubisense in order to achieve complete, automated and adaptable monitoring of their offline production process.

At the Aston Martin plants in Gaydon, England, and St Athan, Wales, the Ubisense Real-Time Location System (RTLS) enhances control of rigorous offline finishing processes. From inspection through to repair and rework, analysis and optimization of each process step ensures production efficiency is maintained at all times.

Ubisense tags are attached to each car as they begin the testing and finishing stages. From that moment on, Ubisense allows production engineers to monitor each Aston Martin in real-time as it progresses through the facility, with alerts if a car deviates from a normal or planned progression.

Previously out-of-date and error-prone paper and spreadsheet-based reporting was replaced with automated, up-to-date insights. Offline teams are guided to prioritize vehicles and tasks to maximise resource utilization and reliably meet delivery schedules.

Volkswagen Logo

Volkswagen in Poznan, Poland, uses the Ubisense real-time location system to automatically identify products on the assembly line and enable the correct use and configuration of wireless tools when they are co-located.

By removing the need to manually identify each vehicle with a barcode scan, VW is able to save time and improve throughput, while also error-proofing operations and improving ergonomics for its workers.

The BMW car assembly plant in Regensburg, Germany, has a reputation for adopting new production methods ahead of the pack. Since 2007, Ubisense has provided a revolutionary new industrial tool control system.

The assembly line at the Regensburg produces BMW 1 Series, 3 Series and Z4 Sports cars, sequenced by the production planning system from customer orders.  At any point on the assembly line, tools must have a torque programme installed corresponding exactly to the car being worked on.

Before Ubisense, workers identified cars by scanning a paper barcode fixed to the car and manually loaded appropriate torque settings to the tool.  The scanning and programming operation wasted valuable time (up to 6 seconds per tool operation) with over 140 tools along the 1.7km production line.

With the Ubisense real-time location system (RTLS), BMW tracks the 3D location of cars and tools to within 15cm, 10 times per second, removing the need for scanning; improving efficiency and error-proofing the possibility of scanning the wrong vehicle.

The system identifies the proximity of a specific tool and vehicle, automatically programming torque and signalling to the worker to begin the tightening operation. Proximity events are detected to a confidence level of 99.99% necessary to gain worker acceptance of the system, making the Ubisense system the most reliable RTLS in the world.

CLAAS Logo

CLAAS is a family business founded in 1913 and is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of agricultural engineering equipment.

The AXION 950-920, AXION 870-800, ARION 650-530, ARION 460-410 and ATOS 350-220 tractor series, which between them cover a performance spectrum from 72 to 410 HP, are currently all produced in Le Mans.

“CLAAS offers an extremely wide choice of vehicle models in order to meet the needs of modern agriculture. By adding Ubisense technology to the facility at Le Mans, we will be able to best cope with product complexity while reducing waste.”

Aldric Pavec, Production Manager, CLAAS

CLAAS Tractor
Assembly Line

Logiprotech (Thailand) Co., Ltd. is a joint venture between Thai and Japanese capitals, established in June 2017.  They provide breakthrough improvements in production and logistics operations in Thailand and the broader Asian region by developing custom IoT systems together with their clients using the most advanced and unique IT technologies.

There is significant demand for innovative solutions that improve production and logistics operations and Logiprotech selected Ubisense RTLS to play an essential role as a core technology in their projects.  Ubisense brings unique benefits to Logiprotech solutions and the ability to prove the necessity and value of IT in countries where applications are at a relatively emerging stage is a clear advantage.

Logiprotech have successfully launched several projects in Thailand based on Ubisense RTLS technology, including at Toyota for pickup truck frame, body & paint repair, and post-production conversion & accessories installation operations.

Logiprotech continue to see opportunities for breakthrough improvements combined with the Toyota Production System (TPS) and the use of advanced technology is being deployed with other companies across the region.

“We aim to bring in innovative systems to contribute to further enhancing the competitive edge of various industries in Thailand and the region.” R. Sasaki, Chairman Logiprotech (Thailand) Co Ltd.

TPF Logo

TPF is the main provider of public transport in the Swiss canton of Fribourg. In addition to managing the regional bus network in Freiburg, TPF also covers two urban bus networks. With an overall bus fleet of more than 250 vehicles, TPF are the second largest regional bus network provider in Switzerland. Like every depot management team, the team at TPF need to ensure that buses are scheduled correctly, arriving and departing as planned and on time. In order to ensure customer comfort and safety, a routine cleaning and maintenance programme must also be scheduled and maintained.

Challenge / Vision

With the move to a brand-new depot facility across three different buildings in April 2019, TPF have centralised the not-in-service parking of buses along with bus maintenance. TPF had previously done the bus scheduling manually, completely relying on staff experience. With the new site covering an area of 70 000 square metres, incl. underground locations offering only poor to no GPS functionality, the manual process had become too complex and unmanageable.

What were the goals/parameters (scale of the issue or opportunity)

Keeping track of a dynamic fleet of buses within a large indoor and underground space is a challenge. This was recognised by the management at the TPF bus depot in Switzerland where a Ubisense real-time location system (RTLS) has been installed in conjunction with a web-based depot management system software. This software was specifically developed for TPF to seamlessly work with SmartSpace, Ubisense’s modular software platform that uses real-time location and identification data from multiple sources to create mission-critical visibility and control applications.

The TPF depot management team were looking for a reliable and cost-effective RTLS that would improve the daily management of their bus depot.

In order to ensure each route is covered according to the timetable, the arrival and departure times of the buses must be monitored and maintained alerting key personnel to possible timetable deviation. Therefore, the precise location and positioning of each vehicle is critical to ensuring that they can be dispatched according to schedule and in the right order.

The Solution: How does Ubisense technology help you overcome your challenge or achieve your vision

A real-time location ultra-wide-band (UWB) radio system transmitter, known as a Ubisense tag, is attached to each bus. The tag emits small signals which are picked up by the network of Ubisense sensors located around the depot. The real-time location information is displayed within the depot management solution online interface enabling the despatch as to schedule and process-manage the depot efficiently.

The depot management system in conjunction with the Ubisense RTLS system has provided the perfect solution for the TPF bus depot offering 24/7 visibility of the buses across the depot and making significant efficiency improvements.

What have been the outcomes (results of the project)

  • The precise and highly reliable Ubisense technology covers a critical process at TPF enabling an efficient operation of the public transport network. It is the key to TPF’s successful operational organisation.
  • Complete 24/7 visibility of busses across the depot
  • Consistently accurate location information allowing buses to be located in their correct lanes and parking spaces both indoors and outside
  • Reliable communication with the depot management system alerting it to busses arriving and leaving the bus depot
  • Considerable improvements of work-flow optimisation within the scheduling application

Mr Grégoire Ramuz, Head of Sales at TPF: “The real-time location ultra-wide-band (UWB) technology from Ubisense is the key to our operational organisation; we couldn’t operate our network without this technology. It is the only truly suited technology for indoor and underground depot bus location. I strongly appreciate the competence and expertise of all involved Ubisense staff. Also, the quality of support and installation documentation is excellent. I’m looking forward to working with Ubisense on extending the solution to more of our depots.”

TPF Buses with Ubisense Tags
VBL Logo

Verkehrsbetriebe Luzern (VBL) is the main provider of public transport in the Swiss city of Luzern. Like every depot management team, VBL must ensure buses are scheduled correctly, arriving and departing as planned, and follow a cleaning and maintenance program to ensure customer comfort and safety.

Keeping track of a dynamic fleet of buses within a large indoor or outdoor space of 12,000 square metres is a challenge. Buses must be parked in the order they will leave the depot to avoid a complex shunting process, causing delays or unsuitable buses used for a particular route.

VBL’s real-time bus depot management system uses Ubisense RTLS to achieve operational efficiency in tracking, organising and dispatching more than 150 buses across a 12,000 square metre garage.

A Ubisense ultra-wide-band (UWB) transmitter is attached to each bus, providing sub-meter, real-time accurate location information into the swissaxis AG BeDips® depot management system. This allows buses to be located and parked correctly, both indoors and outside, alerting when buses arrive and leave 24/7, providing Considerable improvements of work-flow optimisation and efficiency for VBL.

“The solution implemented by Ubisense and swissaxis AG has provided an easy to use management system enabling complete 24/7 visibility of the buses across the depot and making significant efficiency improvements.” Christian Zumsteg, technical leader, VBL

out board Logo

Out Board are market leading specialists in immersive audio and show control for live entertainment, presentation events and experiences. Their TiMax TrackerD4 solution incorporates Ubisense UWB location technology to track the movement of performers to add precise, localized vocals and 3D surround effects for highly atmospheric performances.

TiMax TrackerD4 reliably and automatically tracks performers to within 15cm on stage, eliminating the time needed to manually programme sound cues and reducing the risk of errors resulting in the distraction of inaccurately localized vocals.

In both fixed and temporary installations, from tracking theme park characters, opera singers at the Royal Albert Hall, or bringing Broadway and West End stage musical performances such as the King and I and Aladdin to life for audiences around the world, Out Board partnered with Ubisense for the accuracy and reliability of the UWB solution.

Other customer examples

An automotive company needed to make increasingly variable products on a complex and rigid assembly line.  By using Ubisense SmartSpace, flexible workstations were defined in software allowing changes in real-time so workers could catch-up overrunning tasks or work-ahead without affecting other processes.  This eliminated idle time waiting for products to enter workstations and by smoothing line flow, there was an 80% reduction in line stoppages from overruns.

Automotive Manufacturer

A manufacturer of speciality materials and chemicals kept manual records of similar looking products over a wide storage area, which was error prone and wasted time searching for products, delaying shipments and impacting cost and customer satisfaction.  With Ubisense, pallets of products were tracked and locations integrated with SAP to give real-time, accurate visibility of the shipping area at all times, reducing wasted search time and increasing levels of control.

Manufacturer of Speciality Materials

An aerospace manufacturer needed to quadruple production of an aircraft while significantly reducing cost.  Productivity was hampered by an inability to locate and monitor critical tools, parts and equipment across a large site.  Ubisense gave real-time visibility of all production assets across the site and integrated with planning and manufacturing execution systems.  Previously hidden process waste was highlighted, helping reduce cost, improve parts supply and ensuring production targets were met.

Aerospace & Defence Manufacturer

Assembly of increasingly complex and highly variable products were causing errors and a growing quantity of vehicles requiring rework.  Repair bays often stood empty waiting for the next product increasing cycle time.  Ubisense provided real-time search and mapping on mobile devices so products could be immediately located and scheduled for repair based on priority.  Cycle time was optimized and costs reduced by increasing resource utilization and eliminated unnecessary overtime shifts to catch-up on backlog.

Agricultural Equipment Manufacturer

Planes manufactured across a distributed network of sub- and final-assembly plants, required complex forecasting, scheduling and sequencing of tasks.  Manual data capture at regional sites was error prone and often delayed by up to one month, giving poor visibility of processes and inventory.  Ubisense created a digital-twin of each sub-assembly plant, giving a real-world view of actual process against plan, synchronizing the shop floor with ERP systems, removing errors and delays.

Aerospace Manufacturer

A nation’s military runs a large number of simulated training environments, such as urban combat, to continually improve performance.  Ubisense tracks the real-time movement of soldiers and simulated equipment in 3-dimensions to capture combat-relevant events and integrate into After Action Review (AAR) systems.  Detailed review data and instant video indexing by location and event helps optimize soldier training programs.

National Army

A toxic waste landfill site was undergoing decontamination, requiring people to work safely in a very hazardous environment.  Ubisense tracked workers inside the temporary building in real-time, logging last known position of workers.  Workers were kept safe by ensuring safety protocols were followed and rescue teams were assisted in case of emergency.  The site successfully closed after 5 years.

Toxic Waste Site

A leading logistics company required improved warehouse management to reduce insurance premiums across multiple sites.  Ubisense tracks barcode scanners around the cross-docking warehouses. Whenever a package is scanned, the precise package location is determined and video recording started from one of many cameras around the building. The aggregate video stream for each package is a “video diary” that can be used to demonstrate correct handling of the package in case of an insurance claim.

Logistics Company

A healthcare provider required more detailed activity monitoring to improve rehabilitation programs and patient outcomes.  Ubisense tracks patients during their recovery with fine-grained location and movement sensor data, automatically assessing their mobility in hospitals and allowing comparison with rehabilitation plans.

Healthcare Provider

A national primate research center conducting behavioural research programs required tracking of animal interactions.  Ubisense tracked ape colonies, gathering data on animal movements around the facility, allowing researchers to understand the behaviour of the animals in greater detail.

Primate Research Center

A UK national sports team wanted to use data and analytics from training exercises to improve player performance.  Ubisense tracked the precise location and movement of players in training, providing key performance attributes for analysis including speed, distance travelled, and challenges made.

National Sports Team

A large Canadian department store wanted to improve customer experiences in store and reduce waiting time for accessing product experts.  Key in-store personnel were given Ubisense tags, which allowed other members staff to quickly locate experts in any particular product line when customers asked difficult questions.

Leading Retailer
Ubisense Logo

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