Looking for a Company Asset Tracker? Here’s What You Should Know
Organizations in a vast range of industries need asset tracking solutions that give them visibility into movable, high-value assets at work somewhere in the world. They may be government agencies fighting wildfires or ranchers raising cattle. They may be trucking fleets, energy drilling and pipeline companies, construction firms, ship owners or forestry products companies. The one thing they have in common is that their people and assets are working way beyond line of sight.
Why is a company asset tracker such a valuable tool?
Organizations that operate heavy machinery use company asset trackers to make sure they have the equipment they need onsite at the right time, and to protect it against theft and misuse. Vehicle fleets optimize routing and dispatch, identify aggressive driving and hours hours of manually locating trailers.
Ranchers and livestock herders use trackers embedded in ear tags and collars to monitor where their herds are and detect behavior that may signal trouble. University researchers even use them to monitor everything from the movement of glaciers to the location of buoys full of scientific instruments.
How to Buy the Right Tracker
Acquiring a company asset tracker that truly meets your needs is about finding the right device, the right connectivity, and the right display of your asset locations.
For devices, ask yourself how often you need location “pings” and what operating conditions the tracker has to handle. Globalstar recommends the SmartOne Solar tracker, the only solar-powered asset tracker certified Intrinsically Safe (ATEX, HERO) for combustible environments. With access to sunlight, it operates for years with no maintenance. But it is best used for applications where a 1 or 2 location reports a day do the job. At the other extreme is the SPOT Trace, a small, discrete device with a long-lasting battery that excels at tracking assets in motion by providing location pings as often as every 2.5 minutes.
The Right Connectivity
Most trackers connect through the cellular network. That works fine if they stay in populated areas or along major highways. Leave the coverage area of your mobile network operator, however, and the tracker vanishes. The only fully dependable connectivity option for a company asset tracker is satellite. You may think that satellite is super-expensive and requires a big antenna. Not the Globalstar satellite network. Our network is designed to deliver smart data – just the short bursts of data you need at an affordable cost over most of the world from a gadget you can hold in one hand.
The Right Display
The stream of location data becomes actionable knowledge when it is displayed on digital map. SPOT My GLobalstar, an enhanced mapping application, is accessible by computer or smartphone, as well as offering the option to integrate it into your own management systems. It provides geofencing to trigger alerts to unexpected changes, and advanced reporting to inform day-to-day decisions.
We think Globalstar’s devices, connectivity and mapping application offer the best value in asset tracking. But hey, we’re biased. Check it out for yourself at www.globalstar.com.
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Globalstar |