California-based Samsara has introduced an enterprise-grade asset tag for tracking and managing small, high-value assets.

The device leverages the Samsara Network to offer increased visibility into the location of mission-critical equipment and tools. As a result, organisations can reduce downtime spent searching for lost or stolen items, reduce associated costs, and simplify inventory management.

The industries that power the global economy – such as transportation, oil and gas, and construction – have complex operations that rely on specialised assets to get their work done each day. These assets include toolboxes, jackhammers and chemical totes. Due to manual inventory processes and a lack of connected systems, the recurring loss or theft of these materials can cost organisations millions of dollars every year.

But as sensors get more compact, sophisticated and easier to install, they can track anything, big or small. Samsara’s asset tag was built around this opportunity to provide access and visibility into valuable assets at scale. By connecting critical assets to the cloud, users can easily capture and analyse location insights to improve operational efficiency.

For example, Pike (www.pike.com), a provider of infrastructure for electric and gas utility companies in the USA, uses the Samsara platform across vehicle telematics, video-based safety and asset tracking to connect their operations. Most recently, Pike has begun testing Samsara’s asset tag to help recover misplaced or lost tools and equipment and accurately track safety PPE to comply with annual OSHA testing requirements.

“We have several high-value assets like service gloves and electrical grounds that don’t have serial numbers, but still need to be tracked, managed and inspected to remain compliant,” said James Banner, senior vice president at Pike Electric. “Previously misplaced equipment would take us weeks to locate and, if lost entirely, cost up to a million dollars to replace annually. With Samsara’s asset tags, we are hoping to minimise this downtime, cut costs and digitise manual inspection processes, all while keeping our employees safe and efficient. We’re just getting started with this technology and I look forward to seeing what else it can do.”

Organisations can use the tag to prevent loss and recover stolen assets with location tracking technology powered by Samsara’s network of gateways. They can reduce downtime and boost productivity by sharing asset locations with technicians in the field via the Samsara Driver app and avoid service disruptions with inventory filtering, which pulls a summary of assets and applies filters to identify which tools are in close proximity. And they can better manage inventory and increase operational efficiency with a consolidated dashboard and easy-to-use reporting.

Location tracking capabilities within the tag are enabled by the Samsara Network, made up of millions of IoT devices worldwide. This network coverage powered by Samsara devices leverages industrial-grade Bluetooth LE technology and offers enterprise reliability designed to withstand the ruggedised, complex environments of physical operations.

“About a year ago, the asset tag was born from a radical idea that we could use the millions of Samsara gateways we have out in the field to create a network, enabling tags to ping off those devices,” said David Gal, vice president at Samsara. “With this, we’d unlock a level of asset tracking that was previously impossible and solve even more real-world problems for our customers. After months of rigorous testing and customer feedback, I’m excited to see this vision become a reality. As we further connect every aspect of physical operations, we can turn massive amounts of data into valuable insights and drive real results.”

The asset tag (samsara.com/products/equipment-monitoring/asset-tracking) is shipping to users across North America and Europe.

Samsara (samsara.com) is the pioneer of the Connected Operations cloud, which is a platform that lets organisations that depend on physical operations harness IoT data to develop actionable insights and improve their operations. It has tens of thousands of customers across North America and Europe.