Unlocking Operational Insights with Geofencing

Why did that shipment sit idle for three days before anyone noticed? Why do tools keep going missing between shifts? The answer lies in how things move—and what you can’t see without the right tools.

The ultimate goal of tracking things is not just knowing where they are but gaining insights on how they are moving. By understanding how your goods, supplies, equipment, vehicles, parts, etc. are moving around, where they are piling up, and where they are not going at all, you can build a complete picture emerges of the processes. We call this emergent process. It’s the result of your people dealing with problems as they come up. When your planned process meets reality.

This is why FORMATION supports asset tracking. Knowing how things move around is critical to provide situational awareness to workers, providing insights to managers, and providing everybody with the tools to improve workflows and processes around them. Continuous improvement requires visibility. And our map provides this.

Geofences: Addressing on premise

To translate movement into processes, we need to add meaning to movements. A simple coordinate is meaningless. Nobody speaks latitude and longitude. But we all know how to get home, how to get to work, or to our destination when we go on vacation. All you need to know to do this is an address.

An address only gets you to the front door. What happens once you are inside? This is where geofences come in. A geofence is an area on a map. It has a boundary and things can be inside it or outside. Geofences allow us to divide up a space into meaningful sub divisions. Everything has a place in your workplace. You might have factories with halls, offices with rooms, warehouses with shelves. And you might even have subdivisions.

Everything has an address. Addresses enable you to find things easily. Everywhere that matters has a label, a number, or a code. These form the addresses to your space and they are used everywhere in your IT systems, in people’s heads. For a tracking system to be useful it has to understand your addressing.

Space and time: How it all Comes Together

FORMATION makes it effortless to map your space. Upload a floor plan, divide it up into rooms, halls, work areas. Label storage locations, shelves, etc. Once you have your space organized, we track movements between all those places inside of your workplace.

We keep track of which places things are in. When they get there, and when they leave. And we don’t forget this information. We keep it over time. Doing that allows us to map the journeys of all your key assets through your workplace, out the door to your customer, through your supply chains, and everywhere that matters across the globe.

These journeys tell a story that is the work process as it unfolds on your premises. The process emerges from the movements of things.

Why geofencing is so valuable

• Spot Bottlenecks: Geofencing helps you track how long assets stay in each area, revealing hidden bottlenecks. This enables you to address delays quickly and optimize workflows, ensuring a smoother operation overall.
• Enhance Resource Allocation: By understanding asset flow, you can make smarter decisions about where to allocate your resources. This ensures that every stage of the process is well-supported, improving efficiency across the board.
• Automate Monitoring: Set automated alerts to flag when assets are deviating from the expected flow, or when they spend too much time in one area. This allows your team to react swiftly and keep things on track without constant oversight.
• Stop Looking for Things: Searching for missing items wastes time and money. With our integrated maps and search features, you can instantly find what you need and go straight to it—no more wasting time hunting down equipment.
• Self Organizing: Empower your workforce by giving them a clear view of where they need to be, where the tools or items they need are, and what their next task is. This self-directed approach leads to a more efficient, proactive team.
• Empowered and Happy Workers: By providing your workers with the tools they need to succeed—clear navigation, real-time data, and an intuitive workflow—you’re fostering an environment where they feel in control, motivated, and ready to perform at their best.

Use Case: Streamlining Vehicle Refurbishment with Geofencing

At the Mechatronics Center in Jülich, FORMATION’s geofencing system is used to track armored vehicle parts across a facility the size of 13 football fields. By combining QR codes and BLE beacons, each part’s movement through geofenced work zones is automatically logged — no manual input needed.

• Mechanics can quickly locate parts
• Management gains visibility into bottlenecks
• Workflow inefficiencies become digitally traceable

Result: Increased productivity and throughput, reduced downtime, better use of floor space, and smarter process oversight.

Refer to our DefenseTech page for more details.

Get Started with FORMATION

Ready to bring clarity and control to your operations? Getting started with FORMATION is fast and frictionless:

• Sign up and map your space Create your FORMATION account and build your first interactive map. Contact us to get started.
• Upload your floor plan and define your zones Use our intuitive tools to mark up every area that matters—rooms, storage spaces, work zones, and more. No technical expertise required.
• Order your QR code tags Our passive tracking tags let you keep tabs on anything that moves. Stick them on assets, equipment, or tools, and start tracking instantly. And when you are ready, we can level up your setup with our hybrid tracking solution.
• Unlock instant value From powerful search and real-time navigation to actionable insights, FORMATION starts working for you right away—helping you streamline operations, reduce waste, and make smarter decisions.