The solution, provided by Kubica Corp., a Michigan systems engineering company previously known as Prime Technologies, identifies when each excavator passes through a specific zone on its way to the next assembly station, thereby increasing efficiency and providing visibility into the firm's work-in-progress. Cisco provided its Cisco Mobility Services Engine, an appliance that triangulates each tag's position.

The excavation-machinery assembly plant is the result of a 1988 joint venture between John Deere and Hitachi, and both brands of excavators are made on site. As part of that partnership, the two companies take turns managing the facility during alternating three-year periods.

Deere-Hitachi's workers were tasked with manually updating information from the assembly floor, in order to create a record of how quickly a product moved through each station, as well as when it was removed from the assembly line for some other service, such as fixing a detected flaw. However, the company wanted to take that responsibility out of the hands of employees, and create a more automated solution that would collect the data in real time.

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