Top 5 Highlights from Sewio Summit 2018, the First RTLS Event in Europe

By Petr Passinger | November 5th, 2018 | 8 min read

More than a hundred attendees representing forty different companies from Brazil to Turkey joined Sewio Summit 2018. (See a list of the companies that took part in this year’s summit).

The audience was diverse not only in terms of geography as the mix was created by Sewio partners, customers, analysts, journalists and industry experts. Among the job titles, CEOs just slightly outnumbered CTOs. However, in total, attendees with a technical background slightly surpassed the business ones.

Top Five Highlights of the Event

The event was packed with 16 presentations, 12 of them revealing data from actual real-time location-system installations. The following five topics turned out to be key for this year’s Sewio Summit:

1. Closing the Gap to Massive Adoption of UWB

In the opening keynote, Milan Šimek (CEO at Sewio) stressed out the need of real-time data for smart proactive decisions and listed what’s needed to bridge the gap to massive adoption of large-scale UWB applications. Lubomir Mraz (CTO at Sewio) revealed features of Sewio’s new tag Leonardo and anchor Vista, which are our answer to bridging the gap to mass adoption as they accelerate the scalability and ease-of-use for enterprise projects.

In the Partner Update presentation, Petr Passinger (CMO at Sewio) presented the steps that will be taken on the marketing side to change the market perception and evangelize it. While Vaclav Slajs (COO at Sewio) revealed five steps to provide an unmatched customer experience in delivering Sewio RTLS project.

2. Increasing Workplace Safety

Industrial safety was one of the topics resonating throughout Sewio Summit 2018 as four different software solutions, each unique in its way and all built using Sewio RTLS, were presented.

Ubiquicom’s Safety Locator Suite provides a safety solution in work environments based on the localization of people and vehicles as well as real-time monitoring of biometric and environmental parameters. Vehicles and workers are not only monitored to prevent accidents and collision but can also be located and helped quickly in case of an emergency.
Cybra presented their fail-safe safety and security software solution named Edgefinity, which covers not only personnel, but also assets and infrastructure safety prevention features.
Argeloji followed up on the personnel safety topic with their software solution, Blue Operation, and its real use case in enhancing operator safety of those working in proximity to automated machines.
IBCS introduced a safety solution for tracking forklifts that allows real-time route modification, eliminating congestion and automatically slowing down the speed of the fleet to prevent accidents.

3. RTLS as a Key Element to Industry 4.0

Sewio’s gold partner CEIT introduced the concept of Digital Twin and the real metrics and ROI it brings for various verticals such as automotive or manufacturing.

Digitization of paper dispatch to speed up the search process and track and trace the movement of the plates was showcased in a real-life installation by EPRIN who created its own digital Kanban dispatch note for material flow analysis.

Our partner ICZ presented the tracking of an impressive number of 20,000 pallets, both inside and outside the Budweiser Brewery, in a project they delivered where they replaced the originally used RFID system due to its repeated failure, high-maintenance cost and limited scalability.

Another project in which RTLS replaced RFID was the project of SEG (formerly, the Bosch factory) shown by Laszlo Pinter from IBCS. In this project, IBCS developed a unique solution of integrating five different technologies to improve logistics and the picking process.

Masanori Fujita’s presentation offered a different perspective on various location technologies that showed that Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, RFID, Barcodes and UWB don’t have to be only considered as competitors as these technologies can complement each other’s benefits if integrated in a single system, such as the one developed by Docoyo.

4. Going Beyond Industrial Usage of RTLS

Echotech is a long-term partner for Sewio, and we are always keen to see what innovation they bring each year in the field of sports analytics. And they again exceeded our expectations, talking about their work for Floorball Finals 2018 in the Riga arena whose aim was not only to help coach its team to improve their athletic performance using analytical data, but also provide the data for live TV broadcasts to make them more engaging.

“We are the Fitbit for cows“ is the claim and a motto to explain what our partner Innocow is doing in digitalization in agriculture. They use Sewio RTLS as a core element to follow their goal of healthy cows, happy farmers and fair prices. Innocow uses various real-time provided data, which they process using artificial intelligence (AI) for early detection of diseases, which saves farmers high costs.

Usage of Sewio RTLS for digitization in retail was represented by our gold partner Qualigon from Germany, presenting a use case whose main aim was the optimization of the workflow of employees in a big retail store.

Location-based audio guides, treasure hunt games and other applications in the fields of entertainment and LBS marketing are provided by Locatify, our Iceland partner who have shared the data on their installation for immersive experience in a large, fragmented multi-path environment loaded with blockage materials. It was great to see how Locatify covered its two-level 4,800m² showroom with 121 Sewio’s anchors to offer its visitors real-time and location-based content on tablets in synchronization with AV screens and speakers.

5. Strengthening Technology Partnership

Two technology partners contributed to Sewio Summit 2018 by sharing their visions and roadmaps. Zuzana Svecova from Cisco revealed its vision of the future of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and officially announced Cisco’s cooperation with Sewio on the integration of its UWB technology into one product line of Cisco’s Access Points.

Jean-Christophe, a VP of Sales at Decawave, was talking about a UWB revolution in IoT and the path from Decawave’s success in the automotive industry to the vision of UWB-enabled smartphones. Decawave’s roadmap was revealed and the newly formed UWB alliance introduced.

What Do Attendees Request Most-frequently?

Our partners and clients are alike in asking us for a chance to see an actual Sewio RTLS implementation in usual day-to-day operation. That’s why the event ended with a tour of a Volkswagen factory to see how Sewio RTLS, delivered by our Gold Partner CEIT, is helping Volkswagen reduce costs and increase the effectivity of their production. The tour itself, provided by Volkswagen professional guides, was really engaging and the brief yet strong presentation of CEIT delivered by Robert Žalman in the actual press shop just added a cherry on the cake.

The Next Sewio Summit: From Wine to Beer

This year’s Sewio Summit in Rakvice set a new standard for upcoming Sewio Summit events. The feedback we’ve got shows a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 33 points, which is a commitment for us to make the next summit an even better experience.

As the feedback appreciated the chance to observe and learn at a place with an actual Sewio implementation, we have decided to choose České Budějovice for next year’s Summit as it allows us to take all attendees to a Budweiser Brewery where Sewio helps locate 20,000 pallets of the 100+ kinds of beer Budweiser produces. The event itself will take place in the four-star congress hotel Clarion on the days of September 25 – 26.

We spent the last summit in a wine region, so, taking the next one to the kingdom of beer, we hope we will continue to open new doors and opportunities for our partners and their clients, while enjoying the best experiences together.

Thank you to everyone who made Sewio Summit 2018 such a memorable experience.

P.S. Don’t forget to check out these Sewio Summit 2018 photos.