Over two decades ago, while researching for his PhD at Cambridge University, Dr Andy Ward had a bright idea. If he used tracking technology to monitor the position of people in an office, he reasoned, then it should be possible to automatically re-route incoming phone calls to employees wherever they were in the building. It was a neat idea that was never destined to have an impact in the office environment. The rise of the mobile phone put paid to that. But fast-forward 20 years and the concept Ward developed is now at the heart of a smart factory system that's been embraced by some of the biggest names in manufacturing: including BMW, Volkswagen and Airbus. Marketed through rapidly growing Cambridge University spin-out Ubisense - of which Ward is the chief technology officer (CTO) - the technology enables operators to use an extensive network of tags and sensors to track and monitor in real-time the position of everything in their factory: from tools and manufacturing equipment to the components that are being machined and assembled. The idea is that all this data can be used to enable sophisticated levels of automation and help factory operators carefully analyse and refine their processes.
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