Manufacturing has never been more complex or less forgiving. High-mix orders, tighter lead times, and razor-thin margins leave little room for guesswork. Yet many plants still rely on manual scans, paper travelers, and siloed systems that don’t talk to each other. The result is predictable: missing data, misrouted work, unexpected downtime, and quality escapes that surface late, when they’re most expensive to fix.
It’s not that teams don’t work hard; it’s that they’re working without continuous, trusted visibility. That’s where RTLS-powered process tracking changes the picture.
The cost of partial visibility
Manual scans and paper-based records break down in real-world conditions. A busy station, a missed barcode, or a traveler that doesn’t follow the product can create gaps that ripple across the line:
- Misroutes and rework when a step is skipped or a test isn’t logged.
- Hidden WIP that stalls flow because no one can see where items are waiting.
- Expedited shipping and overtime to make up for late discoveries.
- Audit stress when component-level traceability can’t be proven instantly.
Individually, these look like small inefficiencies. Together, they erode first-pass yield, throughput, and on-time delivery.
What RTLS-powered process tracking looks like
With Litum, each product or carrier is equipped with a battery-powered tracker that carries a unique digital identity. A network of anchors and gateways creates an “indoor positioning layer” across your facility. As items move, their location and status are updated automatically, no manual scans required. This seamless process tracking ensures end-to-end visibility and greater operational efficiency.
- Automatic recognition at each step: The system knows which product arrived, where, and when.
- Smart business rules: If a test fails, routing to rework happens immediately. If a step is missed, an alert triggers before the next operation begins.
- Maintenance in the loop: A call button on equipment tags (or automatic fault detection) can trigger a maintenance request with precise location, cutting response time.
Under the hood, Litum integrates ultra-wideband (UWB) and bluetooth low energy (BLE) technologies to balance identity, range, and accuracy. Signals are converted into location and event data by proprietary algorithms, then surfaced in a process management application that your teams can actually use.eo.
How Litum does process tracking
- Identity + accuracy: Every product or asset carries a tag with a unique ID. Litum combines UWB (ultra-wideband) for high-precision tracking where every step matters, with BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) for broader coverage across the facility. The balance depends on your environment, so you get the right mix of accuracy and cost-effectiveness.
- Event intelligence: If a step is skipped or a test fails, the system triggers an alert and reroutes the product before problems snowball.
- Maintenance tracking: A call button on equipment tags, or an automatic fault signal, creates a work order with exact location details. That helps maintenance teams respond faster and reduce downtime.
- Scalable network: Once the tracking layer is in place, expanding is straightforward. New lines, products, or process rules can be added without disruption.
Where the value shows up
Throughput & flow
Real-time WIP visibility reduces idle time between stations, exposes bottlenecks, and keeps material synchronized with demand, without adding headcount.
Quality & first-pass yield
Identity-level tracking ties every critical component, torque, or test result to the actual product. That supports layered process audits and prevents late-stage surprises.
Maintenance KPIs
When breakdowns happen, exact location and history help teams cut MTTR (Mean Time to Repair); better monitoring improves MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures). And when a device is down, the system can automatically locate a replacement to keep production moving.
Traceability on demand
From rework loops to recall investigations, you can see every step an item took instantly. Compliance becomes a search, not a project.
Flexible production
Run multiple work orders at once with confidence. The system ensures the right steps, in the right order, for the right product variant.
A practical rollout path
You don’t need to “boil the plant.” Most manufacturers start with a critical value stream or a handful of high-impact stations:
- Map the current flow and pain points.
- Attach trackers to the product or carrier.
- Cover the path with anchors/gateways.
- Define business rules (required steps, pass/fail routing, alerts).
- Integrate with MES/ERP where needed for order, BOM, and quality data.
Teams typically see quick wins in misroute prevention, rework cycle time, and maintenance response, and then expand coverage to adjacent lines and support areas (material supermarkets, test cells, packing).
Bottom Line
Process tracking replaces guesswork with facts. It closes the gaps left by manual scans and paper, turning your production flow into a live, measurable system. When every product is identifiable and every step is visible, quality improves, downtime shrinks, and throughput becomes repeatable.
If you’d like to see what this looks like on one of your lines, we can walk through a tailored path to value, starting from your current process and KPIs. With process tracking, you can clearly map inefficiencies, optimize workflows, and measure improvements against real data.
