Tracking devices on board cargo vessels are serving as the foundation of a highly efficient global supply chain powered by AI.Getty Images
The global shipping industry is undergoing a major technological transformation that will make the movement of goods faster, cheaper and more reliable.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world’s large, complex network of shipping companies, ports, freight carriers and other players had little motivation to modernize. Tracking technologies were widely available but relatively expensive and unreliable, and typically only utilized for high-value or highly sensitive goods.
“The technology wasn’t all the way there yet, and it wasn’t as much of a priority,” says Kent Rawlings, co-founder and president of Skylink Solutions, a Toronto-based Internet of Things (IoT) solutions provider.
Mr. Rawlings explains that everything changed during the pandemic, as capacity-stretched ports started turning away cargo.
“Knowing where things were became a big issue,” he says. “They would park cargo containers literally anywhere they could, and then they wouldn’t remember where they were. They couldn’t locate them because the ports were all full or they were sitting on boats in the ocean. It was an absolute disaster from a logistics perspective.”
That chaotic period brought greater urgency to the industry’s modernization efforts, just as the technology was becoming more reliable and affordable.
Wireless IoT tracking devices typically have several ways to share their locations and other data – including WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and radio signals – and Mr. Rawlings says the devices are programmed to use the most reliable and least battery-intensive choice.
“Each uses a different amount of power. If it can’t see Bluetooth, and it can’t connect to WiFi, then it tries GPS-cellular to co-ordinate its GPS position by a satellite and sends that information out via cellular network.”
With this information, Mr. Rawlings says manufacturers can better manage their inventory and production levels, better predict when their goods will reach customers, and find more efficient transportation routes.
“The less efficient the supply chain, the more costly it is to deliver,” he says, adding that such data become even more valuable in an age of artificial intelligence (AI).
“AI would be able to identify least-cost routing methods for products to get them from the manufacturer to the consumer as quickly as possible,” says Mr. Rawlings. “AI algorithms are driven by data, and the tracking devices supply the data into the AI platform, and then the AI works its magic and intelligence to drive efficiency.”
That’s especially true for products that need to be kept within a precise temperature range, such as meat, fish, produce and medicine.
When the onboarding cooling system inside a container ship fails it has the potential to spoil products worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, and such losses are often only discovered once the ship reaches its destination.
“If we have a failure in transit during transoceanic freight movements, we mitigate that pro-actively rather than reactively at the port days or weeks later,” explains Jeff Shirley, founder and CEO of Rivercity Innovations, which specializes in temperature-sensitive monitoring solutions using long-range radio technology, or LoRa.
In 2021, the Saskatoon-based IoT company partnered with French satellite provider Kinéis to tap into the world’s first low-Earth-orbit satellite network and LoRa hybrid system. The project, which launches into orbit in June, will enable Rivercity to track the location and temperature of freight anywhere on Earth, and notify customers of any sudden changes.
With that real-time data customers can alert ships directly to attempt to fix any issues – if the container is accessible and the problem is fixable – or give them a head start on replacing the lost goods.
“A container full of meat could be a quarter million, a million dollars depending on what they’re shipping,” Mr. Shirley says. “If you get a notice that the diesel ran out in one of your containers, or a seal opened or something went goofy, you potentially have the opportunity to prevent that loss before the goods are thawed or overheated.”
While the technology to track the temperature of freight in transit has existed for several years, Mr. Shirley says costs have gone down significantly, while battery life and reliability have improved dramatically.
He explains that the cost of the hardware has dropped from more than $300 a device to about $200, while monthly monitoring fees have dropped from the $25-to-$50 range to single digits.
“We can put a device on these goods and track it anywhere on the planet at a fraction of the cost of the conventional technology methods,” Mr. Shirley says. “In our case you’re looking at a device that’s got 10 years of GPS and satellite tracking with a recyclable battery and no external antenna or plug-in power.”
These devices, he adds, are also serving as the foundation of a highly efficient global supply chain powered by AI.
“AI is already optimizing shipping routes based on weather patterns and political problems,” Mr. Shirley says. “It’s massive: Using millions of variables it can predict supply chain needs in the shipping industry – where, when, why, who, what type of freight, what type of ship, what’s my backup plan – it’s all happening on the AI side.”