Pallet tracking devices for your cost and operational efficiency

Your company has moveable and non-moveable assets. The most common moving assets are the pallets that carry the weight of materials all across your company. These may be raw material pallets, or pallets carrying Work In Progress goods, or the finished goods. Pallets are used while moving the bulk of items as well as for their storage during production or before final sale. Tracking such a large number of units across the company’s systems becomes a herculean task if not done correctly. The task gets further complex with growth in your company’s scale of operations.

Technology like GPS tracking for pallets can come to the rescue for your company’s pallet tracking problems. Your company can operate much more efficiently when proper real-time monitoring is in place. The salient features of GPS based tracking systems are highlighted in the next few paragraphs.

Improved Customer Satisfaction

Satisfied customers translate into repeat customers who stay with you for the long term, and your business grows with their growth. When transporters and logistics providers make GPS pallet tracking available, their customers will no longer issue like goods lost in transit, goods misplaced, goods incorrectly dispatched, or goods are arriving late because of unknown issues. Repeat business is simply the bread and butter for logistics companies. GPS pallet tracking helps in quickly locating the pallet assets to improve operational efficiencies.

Curtailed Labor Cost

It is a routine for a large scale operation trying to locate the required inventory for production. They end up wasting a lot of manhours trying to figure out the location of items. There are instances when such inventory items are lost due to improper placement in the warehouses and often subjected to damage. GPS powered asset tracking tools translate in fewer manhours wasted in locating missing items. Workers can straightaway locate the items as they have their exact location and carry on with their work routines. This has a direct effect on reducing overtime and much higher output across the organization.

Robust Loss Prevention Mechanisms

It is a common fact that goods get stolen or lost during operations. As the business scale grows beyond a size, they need to deploy more resources to keep track of inventory items. This issue is observed with manufacturers producing several variants and types of items. They would have warehouses to store raw materials and distribution centers for finished goods with high throughputs. GPS enabled pallet tracking will reduce the chances of theft and lost items throughout the company supply chain. It will also have a direct impact on item recovery. Thus making their loss prevention mechanisms much more robust. Cutting losses means cutting the cost of operations. It also lets companies follow FIFO and LIFO mechanisms in a properly planned manner. A proper monitoring the movement and treatment of your goods helps improve operational outputs.

More control over returns

Large operations may tend to have a large number of rejections. Tracking rejections due to faulty parts or dissatisfied customers can cause an inventory to pile up at their storage facilities. GPS pallet tracking devices help track your rejected material pallets and monitor them for their proper disposal. As any stuck inventory occupies space and also means loss of value as the item stagnates. Your staff can track such things and work towards speedy disposal.

Bluetooth enabled IoT Devices for Pallet Tracking over RFID tags

The Internet of Things (IoT) enables devices to provide accurate GPS tracking and add several other parameters to their tacking. All this is obtainable on a real-time basis. With the use of such intelligent devices to track your pallets, you can optimize your supply chain. Choosing such Bluetooth Low energy IoT devices can be a challenge. But the choice is made clear with Eelinktech’s DB01 Bluetooth beacon. The beacon can track the GPS location of your pallets with temperature, humidity, shock/tilt as well as lighting measurements. It can provide you with real-time data on your warehouse or while in-transit to ensure the assets are as safe as possible. They can be installed or attached to your pallets in a concealed manner to avoid misuse.

It is recommended that you use a BLE IoT enabled GPS pallet tracking device rather than the standard RFID tags. They do have certain similarities in working. However, the RFID devices do not provide such great levels of flexibility and reliability as the BLE IoT devices. There is no need to rely on a gateway like the RFID tags. You can simply connect with Eelinktech DB01 beacon using your smartphone or tablet and get all the information you need. The device also has a 120×120 LCD screen for immediate viewing as well. It can send notification alarms to your smart devices to enable timely course correction. BLE devices work on Bluetooth 5.0, which has an extensive range as well as low energy consumption. The DB01 beacon can run up to 3 years without the need to change its button cell battery. BLE technology is cost-effective.

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/785964/size-pallets-used-united-states/

Salient features of Bluetooth enabled IoT devices for Pallet Tracking

The GPS pallet tracking device manufactured by Shenzhen Eelink Communication Technology Co Ltd comes loaded with several features. And the list of most useful features of DB01 BLE temperature humidity sensor beacon is really long.

• Accurate location updates – GPS location can be obtained in real-time from the device. It even has geofencing capabilities, which prove useful in theft prevention.
• Built-in Humidity sensors – The beacon can monitor humidity changes in the range of 1% to 100% for the given shipment. The accuracy for tracking these parameters is at par with the latest industry standards.
• Built-in Temperature sensors – Having an extensive temperature sensitivity range, the beacon is very sensitive to ambiance changes and has excellent accuracy.
• The built-in luminosity sensor maintains a check on the ambient lighting. It sends out alarm notification signals when the defined range is exceeded.
• LCD display – This is a very useful feature where users can simply note the recording with click of a button. The easy viewing 120×120 LCD screen does not require to connect a compatible device to pull out data. Temperatures and humidity readings can be taken a right off the screen.
• Accelerometer sensor – Any unexpected tilts, undesirable vibrations, or spontaneous movements can be recorded with great effectiveness. The device’s high fidelity levels allow it to send out alarm notifications caused due to accidental falls.
• Smartphone connectivity – The BLE capabilities allow DB01 to connect with all surrounding smart devices. You can connect using a Bluetooth connection on your tablet, smartphone, or laptop. It has an extensive broadcast range of up to 500m.
• Waterproof (IP65) – The device is IP65 water-resistant as well as dust resistant. Its operation can stay unaffected despite accidental splashes.
• Bluetooth 5.0 – The Bluetooth 5.0 enables the beacon to transmit over longer ranges and consume lesser battery. It has an extensive broadcast range of up to 500m.
• Host Connection allows for connection with up to 40 devices and easy sending data to the server
• Local data cache – You could easily export data in CSV format through USB Port
• Extended battery life – With a standby of up to 3 years, you only need to replace the 600mAh CR2450 Button Battery once in 3 years
• Notifications support alarms – These notifications include humidity, temperature, lighting alarm, tilt alarm, vibration alarm, and low battery alarm.

The right piece of IoT equipment that is concealable can help track your pallets and provide traceability and real-time tracking for your evolving business. These devices can prove immensely beneficial in your business’s operations, guaranteeing them a wise investment decision. As discussed above, the significant benefits include cost efficiency, process efficiency, less manpower, operational effectiveness, and robust loss prevention. This is the right investment in your business, which you will reap for a long time in the future.