IoT Tracking Locates Merchandise So Much Faster

Tracking is not always a matter of the value of goods or merchandise. The principal requirement of regular maintenance or unloading is speed. An IoT solution that can be used throughout Europe makes tracking faster.

Where are the containers, tools and equipment, trailers, vehicles or other goods? Tracking them is often not primarily a matter of the value of assets as such. Companies frequently invest a great deal of time in finding out where their assets are. Especially in the case of recurring services such as regular maintenance or unloading containers this can involve unnecessary personnel costs and loss of time. Shortening the search and thereby optimizing regular processes is what matters in many business cases. So the aim is to find rather than to search.

As in the case of REMONDIS press containers. The gray metal containers with built-in compactors are hard to overlook: nearly seven meters long with a capacity of up to 20 cubic meters of commercial waste. The logistics service provider has to check its roughly 1,000 press containers once a year, collecting them from customers who rent them. But customers move them around company premises or from construction site to construction site as required, so the REMONDIS service staff sent to collect them often first have to find them. The valuable time that drivers used to spend on the phone or finding containers on the customer’s premises can in the future be saved by using a smart Telekom IoT solution.

Telekom designed the Low Cost Tracker as an inexpensive solution for asset tracking and tracing. That is why, in terms of technology, the hardware is deliberately kept simple and efficient. As a plug-and-play device the smart tool is simply attached to containers, larger tools or construction machinery, vehicles and other movable goods. The tracker is connected via the cellular network with Telekom’s IoT Cloud. Depending on the version it and the attached asset can be located (primarily) by WiFi, GPS or the mobile network. Readings can be relayed via an API interface to customers’ systems such as REMONDIS’s back office. The Low Cost Tracker takes the service provider’s container service straight to the destination without detours, saving valuable working time and costs.

In a personal Web portal in the IoT Cloud the user has an overview of all connected assets. Based on pre-defined threshold levels the track-and-trace solution recognizes critical conditions such as free fall or temperatures above or below specified levels. Geofencing enables it to recognize when a tracker unexpectedly leaves a defined area. In these cases the system alarms the user via the portal or by e-mail. Due in part to low hardware costs the compact IoT device is suitable for use in different industries and use cases, including asset management and logistics (in storage and in transit) as well as waste disposal (such as used clothes containers) or rental of movable goods (containers, trailers, large tools, scaffolding), especially when regular maintence is required.