Asset Control: The new IoT solution for monitoring field-deployed fixed assets

June 11, 2024

Companies with large volumes of assets deployed in the field often face the problem of having little visibility into the current location of their assets: They often have no way of knowing if they have suffered a failure or have been tampered with inappropriately. This lack of information impacts the ability to forecast and schedule maintenance tasks efficiently.

The types of assets managed by companies can be as varied as the types of industries and services provided by the market. They can range from ATMs installed in rural areas, or outside bank branches; professional coffee machines, industrial refrigerators and coolers, vending machines, amusement machines and even gas installations with reusable supply points such as gas cylinders and small tanks.

Part of the complexity of monitoring remote assets is based on the fact that most of these assets do not have any type of sensor or internet communication installed. They are machines with legacy systems that are not equipped with the latest technology, and therefore asset management depends on teams of operators who must perform on-site maintenance and collect manually information on the use of the assets.

This can create:

A gap in the time in which events occur and in which operational data is collected.
Delays in assigning maintenance and/or repair tasks and in many cases, loss of assets due to lack of visibility and control.
The breakdown of a machine or the impossibility to replace its materials, food, money supply, etc. can generate situations of loss of profit for companies due to lack of service availability, in addition to impacting on the quality of service to the end customers of such companies.

Main challenges for companies with assets deployed in the field

Theft or loss of assets.
Loss of revenue due to unavailability of the service.
Lack of visibility of the operation.
Low levels of service to the end customer.
Poor maintenance forecasting

Telefónica Tech has developed Asset Control, an end-to-end solution for the monitoring of fixed assets deployed in the field, with the purpose of helping companies to overcome this context with the operation of their assets.

Main features

Continuous monitoring of critical variables such as location, pressure, temperature and vibration.
Detection of anomalous behavior and configuration of business rules and alarms.
Dashboard for visualization of events, telemetry history and sending of notifications.
Easy and fast deployment, 'plug & play' style.

The main use cases include:

Automation of overhaul and maintenance processes.
Reduction in asset downtime.
Increased asset utilization.
Optimization of operational costs.
Improved asset end-user experience.
Positive contribution to the environmental sustainability of the service by reducing the impact produced and the resources required for its operation.

The solution has three components, an IoT device equipped with sensors, a platform for data visualization and NB-IoT connectivity from Telefónica.

The solution allows easy installation and ensures long life cycles of IoT devices without maintenance, thanks to its UDP protocol communications module technology that allows greater battery savings. It also achieves a wide penetration and coverage range thanks to the Narrow Band communications network, and real-time data visualization and alert scheduling, on a Cloud platform that allows flexibility in scaling the number of units deployed.

Finally, it is equipped with APIs for uploading business information to the platform and for the integration of the platform's data into customers' own systems.

✅ If you want to learn more about this solution, contact us →