Motive Beacon launches to track equipment, maximize asset utilization

San Francisco-based Motive, an artificial intelligence (AI) platform for physical operations, has announced Motive Beacon, a compact tracking device designed to help operations teams locate containers and small equipment. 

Motive Beacon is powered by the Motive Mesh Network, the company’s network which uses Motive vehicle gateways and devices running the Motive’s fleet app and driver app to detect beacons through Bluetooth, reporting their last seen location.  

Motive says the network allows Beacon to provide the visibility teams need to maximize asset utilization, locate equipment across operations and prevent equipment from being left behind at jobsites.  

The company says physical operations leaders face a major challenge: tracking billions of dollars' worth of assets across jobsites, warehouses and other field sites to keep construction builds, field services work, infrastructure deployments and logistics projects on track and on budget.  

The average U.S. warehouse spends nearly seven weeks a year searching for lost or misplaced items, according to Motive. Without accurate tracking, resource planning can become guesswork.

Motive Beacon is designed to support industries including construction, logistics, utilities, landscaping, roadway maintenance and field services. Whether tracking tools on jobsites, containers in warehouses or portable generators in transit, Beacon’s infrastructure detects when an asset is offsite or in transit, providing discreet tracking for small equipment and assets frequently on the move.  

“Missing equipment costs companies billions of dollars annually,” says Robert Higdon, Motive director of product. “With Motive Beacon, we’re helping give customers the visibility they need to locate equipment and assets within the Motive platform, the same platform they’re already using to manage the most critical pieces of their operations including vehicles, drivers, fleet-related spend and heavy equipment.” 

With Motive Beacon, the company says operations leaders and equipment managers can gain more visibility through its network, maximize equipment return on investment (ROI) and recover misplaced equipment.