Optimise your supply chain management with IoT insights

Industrial manufacturers are faced with increasing demand for product volume and at teh same time rapidly increasing prices for transport fuel, natural resources and raw materials. As production becomes more widely globalised, increasingly complex supply chain routes intensify the need for real-time localization and dynamic tracking of goods through the transport system on land, sea and air, and during storage in warehouses.
The logistics ecosystem has many actors: in a typical route, the product moves from: manufacturer to suppliers, distribution center, retailer, and eventually to the customer. This complexity in the supply chain calls for an agile and transparent supply network, with clear visibility of product whereabouts and other key information.
Current tracking technologies such as RFID will locate products only at specific locations. Additionally, GPS location combined with cellular connectivity cannot offer sufficient battery lifetime for end-to-end route tracking.

Actility’s ThingPark solution uses Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) technologies to offer enhanced battery life for trackers, leveraging this technology to deliver battery autonomy of up to ten years. Taking advantage of public nationwide or privately operated LoRaWAN networks, industrial users can deploy tracking devices with both GPS and LoRa connectivity, dramatically increasing the battery life to several months instead of days. This enables the end to end dynamic tracking of goods between manufacturing plants, warehouses and end customers.

Inside warehouse and storage facilities, indoor location and geofencing are also available using LoRa’ss network-based triangulation capabilities, adding even more battery life and reducing the overall solution cost.

Integrating data from other sensors offers further capabilities. By introducing traffic monitoring sensors, for example, supply chain operators can to adapt to traffic conditions, avoid delays and save fuel; and data from weather, temperature and / or humidity sensors, will help ensure that the cold chain is respected.

Offering better service for end-customers

Tracking of goods, based on precise real-time information, creates a better service to end customers and increases satisfaction; they can now know where the exactly where their item is located at any time, tracking precisely and addressing any potential issue in real time.

Make savings by reducing losses

Real-time localization of all goods, pallets and containers reduces losses caused by operational errors or thefts. Defined “geofences” can be created, with a dedicated application that can send alerts as soon as the product exits the pre-defined area will help prevent thefts.

Optimising the supply chain end-to-end

Actility ThingPark helps all supply-chain stakeholders optimize processes, handling and logistics operations. Shipping companies can easily find the right container in huge ports, handling agents track lost luggage in airports, and stockholders or distributors the relevant product stored in a warehouse. Being able to quickly locate a specific product avoids loss of time and fuel, and decreases the risk of error and mishandling resulting in the despatch of the wrong product.