Visibility Inside the Warehouse: When 20 Centimeters Changes Everything

In this episode of Rozmowy Logistyków, Piotr Skobało and Adam Sobolewski continue the topic of supply chain visibility, this time from the warehouse side. They break down the benefits of systems and hardware that track the movement of people and goods down to a few dozen centimeters.

WHAT TRACKING PEOPLE AND EQUIPMENT IN THE WAREHOUSE GETS YOU

Visibility inside the warehouse means being able to track the movement of goods, people, and resources (forklifts, equipment) in real time. Two main benefits: productivity (avoiding sending several workers to the same aisle where they'll get in each other's way) and safety (instantly locating a worker in an emergency, instead of hours of searching).

THE ARMS RACE: FROM 2 METERS TO 20 CENTIMETERS

A key technological difference decides how useful a system is: simple Bluetooth gives location accuracy around 2 meters (you know which aisle someone is in), newer RTLS (Real-Time Location System) solutions get down to 20-30 centimeters — knowing exactly which shelf a worker is standing at. That's a real game changer: it enables precise, optimized diagonal picking routes instead of rectangular paths, and lets you define safety zones (e.g. an alarm when a tag enters the loading-dock zone).

VISIBILITY ISN'T ONE TECHNOLOGY, IT'S THE INTEGRATION OF SEVERAL

Unlike shipment tracking in transport, visibility inside a warehouse requires integrating several systems at once: a WMS managing the work, location sensors (RFID, Bluetooth, RTLS), and an analytics layer combining that data into movement heatmaps and safety alerts. An example of an integrated system: workers and forklift operators wearing active tags, where a handheld device or the worker's glasses warn "stop, a forklift is about to cross the aisle" — sometimes at the cost of momentary productivity, but eliminating collision risk once managed with horns at intersections and mirrors.

REAL NUMBERS: DECATHLON AND A 20% REDUCTION IN PICKING TIME

Decathlon deployed RTLS at distribution centers in Western Europe, cutting order-picking time by over 20% by precisely directing workers to tasks that don't collide in time with others — across several centers, that's savings of around 500,000 euros a year. The general math: since human labor is usually a warehouse's biggest cost, and picking is about 40% of that labor cost, a 15% improvement in picking translates into 5-6% savings across the whole facility's operation.

EQUIPMENT TRACKING: LESS CONTROVERSIAL, EQUALLY PROFITABLE

Volkswagen deployed an equipment-tracking system (forklifts, bins — not workers, since German legislation makes tagging people difficult) in its factory warehouses, discovering a 30% surplus in the forklift fleet at its largest plant — across the group, that translated into 2 million euros in annual savings. Such a study once required a one-off investment of over 100,000 PLN for a month-long GPS-based measurement with 2-meter accuracy — today, continuous equipment tracking comes along with a standard RTLS deployment, with a payback period often under a year.

LEGISLATION AND TEAM BUY-IN

Tagging employees runs into varying legal limits depending on the country (harder in Germany than in other parts of the EU) — which is why some deployments deliberately limit themselves to equipment, not people. A key success factor for deployment is communication: a system presented as a tool guiding the worker through a more efficient picking route gets better acceptance than the same system presented as a mechanism for raising performance targets with no benefit to the worker.

WHY NOW IS A GOOD MOMENT

Just a few years ago, RTLS vendors were exclusively large global players — today, local vendors are appearing in the Central European market (including Poland, e.g. Optidata) offering solutions with a payback period under a year, without having to reach for expensive American systems.