Digi-Key takes Bluetooth Option to preserve safe distancing

Digi-Key has highlighted how it turned to Bluetooth, and a LoRa network, to ensure safe distancing procedures for all employees in its product distribution center (PDC).

Each employee is issued with an Option badge, which interact wirelessly with other such badges and also a cloud platform that can maintain contact tracing information. This improves the accuracy and efficiency of necessary quarantine procedures, says the company.

“We selected the badge option with Option because it really offered the best in employee privacy,” said Shane Zutz, vp of human resources for Digi-Key. “It provides the contact tracing needed to mitigate disruptions due to health concerns, without an infringement of privacy and does not trace anyone beyond our corporate campus.”

Digi-Key highlighted it did not have to make significant infrastructure investments. It already had plans to implement LoRa technology in the future as part of their smart warehouse initiative, and this option was one of the few that was based on a LoRa network, it said.

“The solution works on a LoRa network (low-power wide-area network) that is active within the walls of the Digi-Key campus. The newly built out LoRa network wirelessly transmits the information to a cloud platform that securely maintains contact records in the event that a contact tracing report needs to be created. The LoRa network also opens up other options for future applications critical to the company’s ‘smart warehouse’ initiative such as building access, area access, asset tracking, and more.”

The system is based on contact events between badges rather than more invasive means like employee interviews, says the company. It believes the system can accurately report when employees are within 6 feet of one another for an extended period of time.

“Digi-Key recognized the strength and flexibility of Option’s solution which rests on two pillars – WMW’s cloud-based platform with apps and data registrars and Option’s CloudGate IoT gateway with superior wireless LoRaWAN performance; both core building blocks for successful digital transformations in Digi-Key,” said Alain Van den Broeck, CEO of the Belgian company Option.