Using technology to track holiday shipments

With the holiday season right around the corner, the need for smart technology solutions is essential. The influx of products developed, managed, qualified and shipped between October and December each year is vast, and facilities manufacturers are always looking for ways to streamline efficiencies and drive down costs.

As such, it’s becoming increasingly important for companies to automate the tracking process within manufacturing facilities and plants, especially during peak shipment times such as the holiday season. Depending on the size of the organization, there may be hundreds of thousands of products being produced, which then are being packaged and shipped throughout the world.

This is a highly complex procedure that requires precision and accuracy across the entire manufacturing process. If an aspect of the process fails and a crate is mislabeled and moved to the incorrect shipping truck, a store might not receive an entire shipment of the desired product. Not to mention a double shipment of the same product to a different location. This mix-up not only causes challenges for the retailer, but it’s a costly mistake for the distribution plant as the product now needs to be reshipped via a rush order to its real destination.

Typically, this process and management falls to the warehouse workers who manually track assets throughout expansive facilities and follow goods while they are out for shipping. However, we’re increasingly witnessing organizations turning to technology and connectivity solutions for tracking, which is helping to ensure better productivity and cost savings.

For example, a France-based company, Ineo Sense, has created and implemented Clover-Core, a series of LoRa-enabled sensor products for smart asset tracking in manufacturing settings. By integrating wireless connectivity via the LoRaWAN protocol, product managers and engineers across a warehouse setting can effectively monitor the usage, functionality, current status and location of expensive manufacturing equipment and shipment assets in real time. That means staff can remotely monitor their global operations and assets produced from one central location.

The holiday season is a very challenging time for retailers with many companies relying heavily on the revenue generated in this short window of time to reach their year-end sales goals. That said, IoT devices can seamlessly be installed into an existing manufacturing plant to help mitigate potential error and streamline the process. All consumers want the ability to purchase their holiday gifts in time for the season’s close, and manufacturers can do their part by ensuring the product is delivered on time.

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