Software is the Key Enabler for Your IoT: It’s Worthless Without It

We presented FORMATION’s innovative asset tracking solution at the RFID & IoT in the Nordics 2024 conference in Copenhagen yesterday. The theme of the conference, Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC), aka. Asset Tracking or Asset Management, is central to our mission. But why is this such a hot topic? And what is a software company like ours doing at such a conference?

Asset tracking is revolutionizing workplaces around the globe. Knowing where things are removes uncertainty and allows for significant efficiency gains. As the conference organizers highlighted, optimizing efficiency is crucial for sustainability. Improved efficiency leads to better resource use, such as energy, and reduces CO2 emissions and improves energy efficiency.

FORMATION’s Unique Approach

One key insight we’ve had for a while is that asset tracking can be hardware-intensive and therefore expensive. As a software company, FORMATION doesn’t make or sell hardware. Our approach to addressing this cost issue is to make hardware optional—we support it, but we don’t require it. To maximize the value of tracking, it’s vital to track as much as you can. Every box, nut, bolt, pallet, brick, tool, vehicle, machine, etc. counts! Using hardware tracking solutions alone can quickly become prohibitively expensive.

Hybrid Tracking

Our solution to this problem is hybrid tracking. Hybrid tracking enables you to track everything that matters using QR Codes and Bar Codes. QR Code Tags provide a cheap, super scalable baseline. Additionally, we support hardware to enhance convenience, accuracy, frequency, and reliability for tracking key assets. This means you can track the same assets with expensive IoT in your factory and use QR Code tags when they move outside. Hybrid tracking works everywhere: inside your factories, on the road, on the oceans during shipping, at your customers’ locations, or wherever else you care to track your assets. Hybrid tracking gives you the best of both worlds—use advanced IoT where it makes sense and QR Code Tags for everything else. The important part is tracking as much as you can.

Industry Partnerships and Integration

We partner with the best companies in the industry to deliver hardware-based asset tracking and other solutions. And of course, we made some new friends at the conference. If it speaks coordinates, we can integrate it. In fact, we are not limited to just X, Y (and Z); we can also integrate sensor readings, metadata from RFIDs, ERP systems, and whatever else you have. Maximizing the value these solutions requires good software. And that’s what we specialize in. We add value by adding our spatial software on top of your hardware and IOT.

Try it out!

Curious to see how this works? Try it out and use our handy new onboarding tour to learn how to track your assets.