One of the biggest hits in the consumer marketplace is tracking-related technology. Tiny electronic chips that people attach to their pets, children’s shoes, cars, laptops, and other prized possessions are flying off store shelves.
But on the industry side of the question, electronic tracking has achieved the level of high science that helps companies keep tabs on inventory, trucks, valuable cargo, commercial cars, and international shipments of high-priced goods. The era of digital tracking has finally arrived in every industry.
Gone are the days when e-tracking devices were too expensive or not reliable enough for small businesses to use. The ability to follow tangible assets and workers via technology has had a profound effect on the state of the commercial world. Though there are some drawbacks and privacy issues in rare instances, the overall effect of the widespread use of e-trackers has been beneficial for companies. The following examples highlight the positive outcomes of this new, transformative technology.
Asset and Inventory Protection
Tiny, high-tech tags and chip-enhanced labels are the modern equivalent of a 24/7 security guard in many ways. Expensive equipment, like computers and construction tools, can be ID tagged for easy recovery and theft prevention. Not only do smart tags and tape identify the owners of items, but they also carry other vital data like purchase price, date of acquisition, and a history of repairs, upgrades, or modifications.
Commercial Truck Fleets
Modern fleet software solutions are sophisticated technological wonders that have brought the transport industry from the past to the future. The telematics features alone reach far past original GPS-enabled trackers for vehicles and cargo. Owners of fleet-based companies use telematics to collect and analyse relevant data in real-time. Supervisors turn to telematics for dozens of solutions, some related to driver safety and others that analyse fuel efficiency, engine maintenance status, and much more. Even simple route trackers deliver essential information to team supervisors about on-time status, whether drivers are off course, and where every load of cargo is located at any given moment in time.
Company Cars
While typical company vehicle fleets don’t come with the same level of tech used for trucking companies, embedded ID prevents the loss or theft of vehicles like cars, vans, small buses, and electronic carts, the latter being especially susceptible to theft. Also, most of today’s corporate fleet cars include black box tech that records speed, routes, fuel usage, and drive times. On-the-road sales and technical workers realize that the vehicle they drive for business purposes is a rolling recorder that stores virtually every key parameter in an onboard computer. While some corporate cars do fall prey to vandals and attempted thefts, they’re always recovered in short order.
International Shipping
Sending merchandise via ship used to be something of a gamble. Even when senders followed strict documentation protocols, it was often difficult to find out where items were located in real-time and on which cargo ship they went out on. This was particularly true for smaller goods that were shipped at random times to clients all over the world. Modern e-tags have changed all that due to simple GPS locators that can pinpoint the longitude and latitude of shipments at sea through electronic tracking.
Images courtesy of unsplash.com
