Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, has announced a new addition to its location-based services portfolio that helps organisations easily track valued assets, resulting in improved organisational efficiency and lower capital and operational costs associated with misplaced assets. The Aruba asset tracking solution is fully integrated into the Aruba wireless infrastructure, enabling simplified, fully integrated deployments at dramatically reduced costs.
Organisations worldwide lose millions of dollars every year on high-value items and inventory that are misplaced, lost or stolen. Furthermore, employees and customers suffer from lost productivity and poor experiences. These challenges are particularly prevalent in industries like healthcare, where items such as IV pumps and heart defibrillators are easily misplaced, resulting in 25% of hospital staff’s time wasted looking for these assets and negatively impacting quality of care. In retail and warehousing, items that can’t be located quickly mean wasted time for employees, delayed order fulfilment for customers and often, a loss of revenue for the retailer.
Aruba asset tracking addresses these challenges with a solution that is integrated into the Aruba Wi-Fi infrastructure, eliminating the need for a separate network. Organisations also gain the benefits of accurate tracking of important items using either an intuitive, map-based mobile app or by integrating with organisations’ existing tracking solutions. The solution includes the following components:
• Advancements to ArubaOS and Aruba APs: This new software allows Aruba BLE-enabled Access Points and Sensors to act as asset tag ‘observers’, creating a sensory network that provides added value to organisations with existing Aruba wireless infrastructure. In essence, it allows their Wi-Fi infrastructure to double as an asset tracking network.
• New Aruba tags: Cost-effective Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) – enabled tags are slightly larger than a quarter, making them ideal for items that range in size from IV pumps in a healthcare setting to pallets of goods in a warehouse. The tags are designed to meet stringent environmental requirements and come with multiple attachment options.
• Asset tag configuration app: Aruba’s configuration app makes set-up and ongoing management of the tags simple. Assets can be designated with names, photos and optional IDs so that like assets can be searched for easily. Changes can be performed quickly, near the assets and all data is automatically saved in a central cloud database.
• New features for the Aruba Meridian AppMaker: Organisations can now create their own asset tracking app for iOS or Android with the Meridian AppMaker. The AppMaker provides a new SDK and APIs for seamless third-party integration and custom use cases.
Partner ecosystem enables broad adoption across industries
Key to the success of Aruba’s existing location-based services and mobile engagement portfolio has been the Meridian Engage Partner Program. Customers have leveraged app developers to integrate and build value-added mobile apps for iOS and Android that are used with the Meridian Mobile App Platform and Aruba Mobile Engagement portfolio. Aruba is extending the engage program beyond Meridian app developers to now include Meridian asset tracking partners including Emerge, Raizlabs, STANLEY Healthcare and VenueNext.
“We are pleased to deepen our existing relationship with Aruba for location solutions in healthcare,” said Raz Evenor, Director of Product Management, STANLEY Healthcare. “Our MobileView platform combines the widest range of real-time visibility solutions with advanced analytics for hospitals to increase safety and security for patients and staff, drive operational efficiency and ultimately deliver a better patient experience. As technology and network infrastructure evolve, we are always looking for new ways to expand choices for our customers. This partnership with Aruba for BLE-powered asset tracking gives our healthcare customers an additional cost-effective option for management of mobile medical assets.”
HPE Pointnext
Aruba Meridian Services from HPE Pointnext provide customers and partners worldwide with the expertise needed to take advantage of location-based services to engage with mobile users in any organisation or public-facing venue. These services can help augment customer IT and Aruba partner teams to provide the capabilities needed for the design and development of mobile applications with the Meridian platform.
Aruba asset tracking is one of the intelligent edge innovations that Aruba unveiled this week at HPE Discover. Aruba also introduced its 8400 Core Switch Series, a new core aggregation switch that delivers the performance, power, automation and troubleshooting capabilities necessary to address the challenges of mobility, cloud and IoT inherent in networks today.
Aruba asset tracking is available now.
Ecosystem partner quotes
As a leading venue technology company, VenueNext provides healthcare companies with better operational awareness and efficiency via location and mobile experiences. “Our customers have been asking for an asset tracking solution that delivers visibility for critical assets with location accuracy, while also integrating with our existing application platform,” said Scott Rehling, Vice President Strategic Channels, VenueNext. “By leveraging Aruba’s asset tracking solution we can provide the added functionality requested by utilising customers’ Wi-Fi and beacon infrastructure, resulting in operational efficiencies.”
Emerge is a digital experience agency that leverages world-class user-centred design and custom application development to quickly solve complex challenges and address untapped opportunities. “With the addition of asset tracking capabilities to the Aruba Mobile Engagement platform we can now offer our customers an innovative tool to use their mobile applications to increase productivity and customer experience in their facilities,” said Julian Pscheid, Chief Technology Officer of Emerge Interactive. “Whether by providing front-line employees instant visibility into critical equipment location, connecting real-time asset locations to Meridian indoor turn-by-turn navigation and personalised push-notifications, or integrating location data with legacy systems, we look forward to incorporating Aruba’s asset tracking solution into our customers’ enterprise ecosystems.”
Raizlabs designs and builds world-class iOS, Android, and web apps for startups and big brands. “Our team is constantly exploring new and emergent technologies in an effort to deliver the best possible solutions to leading competitive enterprises,” said Jason Petralia, President of Raizlabs. “As a part of this ongoing exploration, we’ve realised the growing need for a complete asset tracking solution and are excited about Aruba’s technology advancements and commitment to a full-featured and robust solution.”
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