Trolley Tracking System
LATL Narsapura Manufacturing Facility
Client Context
LATL's Narsapura manufacturing facility uses a fleet of production trolleys to transport components and finished goods between assembly lines, storage areas, and dispatch gates throughout the plant.
As production volumes increased, the limitations of manual trolley tracking became a source of operational friction — creating delays in dispatch coordination, reducing visibility into trolley availability, and limiting the facility's ability to measure and optimise material flow.
Operational Challenge
Before the system was implemented, trolley movement was tracked manually. This created several operational challenges that affected production flow and dispatch efficiency:
- Limited visibility into trolley location across plant areas
- Difficulty identifying empty versus loaded trolley availability at any given time
- Inefficient dispatch coordination due to manual tracking of trolley positions
- Lack of reliable data on trolley movement patterns and utilisation
- Manual coordination required between finished goods storage and shop floor teams
System Objective
The goal was to implement a digital trolley tracking system capable of:
- Monitor trolley entry and exit across key plant checkpoints
- Track movement between finished goods storage and shop floor areas
- Provide real-time visibility to operators and supervisors
- Maintain a centralised record of trolley activity across all plant areas
- Support live operational dashboards for monitoring and alert management
Solution Approach
Our team implemented a digital trolley tracking platform that automatically detects trolley movement at key plant checkpoints and aggregates this data into a centralised operational system.
Identification points were installed at all critical plant locations — empty trolley areas, dispatch gates, storage entry and exit points, and shop floor return routes. Each trolley carries an identification tag that is automatically detected as it passes through these checkpoints, generating a timestamped movement record.
These movement events are transmitted through the plant's industrial communication infrastructure to a central tracking application, which maintains a real-time inventory of trolley positions and feeds operational dashboards visible to supervisors and dispatch teams.
Operational Dashboard
The system provides real-time monitoring through an ANDON-style dashboard. Colour-coded status indicators allow operators and supervisors to assess plant state at a glance without manual checks.
Grey
Grouped trolley state
Yellow
Alert condition
Orange
Warning condition
Red
Alarm condition
Green
Completed / normal status
Abnormal Scenario Detection
The platform automatically identifies and surfaces abnormal operational scenarios:
- Duplicate movement events — same trolley detected multiple times at the same checkpoint
- Incorrect routing — trolley detected at an unexpected location given its current state
- Missing detections — expected checkpoint scan not recorded within the defined time window
Business Impact
- Real-time visibility of trolley movement across all plant areas
- Reduced manual coordination between storage and shop floor teams
- Faster dispatch decision-making based on live trolley availability data
- Improved tracking of finished goods movement and dispatch operations
- Data-driven analysis of trolley utilisation patterns across shifts
- Increased operational transparency for plant supervisors and management
System Architecture
Trolley Tracking System — Data Flow
Layer 1 — Physical Detection Points
Layer 2 — Industrial Controllers
Layer 3 — Plant Network
Layer 4 — Central Application Server
Layer 5 — Operational Interfaces
Hover over any layer to understand how RFID detection events flow through the plant network to the tracking platform and operational dashboards.
*Project experience represents prior industrial deployments delivered by members of the Iteranium engineering team across global manufacturing environments.
Ready to Transform Your Operations?
Let’s discuss how Iteranium can help modernize your manufacturing processes with Industry 4.0 technology.