For providing enterprises with visibility into the location of their workforce in a facility, identity solutions
provider, HID Global, has launched its new HID Location Services, making it possible to analyze room usage for better building management and increased operational efficiency.
According to the company the offering can be customized for enterprises, universities, manufacturing facilities or any organization seeking to optimize their workforce and streamline facility management using proximity and real-time location services.
“HID Location Services extends HID’s leadership in physical access control with a cutting-edge Internet of Things offering for workforce optimization solutions that can be easily integrated into existing systems,“ said Harm Radstaak, Vice President and Managing Director, Physical Access Control Solutions, HID Global.
“These new capabilities leverage the power of trusted identities to provide a new level of visibility for customers to better understand how buildings are used, help quickly find people in emergency situations, and deliver an extraordinary user experience.”
What is under the hood?
The new location services is enabled by Bluvision, a company that was recently acquired by HID, which claims to provide capabilities based on an organization’s needs. The identity solutions company states that its real-time location services are ideal for monitoring and providing deeper analytics around the movement of personnel in a building for better insight to optimize usage of facilities, common areas and individual rooms.
The offering’s proximity-based services verify when employees are nearby a given area for use cases such as monitoring employee check in and check out; it also helps organizations meet health and safety regulations by monitoring room occupancy.
How does it work?
HID claims that the solution uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and can accurately pin point movement and location even in large, open spaces and areas in which it has historically been challenging to implement RFID technologies. The offering also includes a cloud service, portals and Bluetooth beacons in the form of smart cards, providing a one-card solution for both indoor positioning services and physical access control.
Because it is based on the cloud, it requires minimal hardware, which eliminates the expensive infrastructure setup of antennas, servers and wired infrastructure, thus reducing the total cost of ownership. To install the users can plug in AC-powered BLE/WiFi gateways and provide personnel with the smart card beacon.
The company further states that in the future this technology can be used not only for workforce optimization but also for building optimization to include building automation capabilities, rich security features, and capabilities that facilitate life safety management and compliance.
