Tracking All The Right Boxes
This article is an extract from the Winter Edition of MER Magazine published in August 2018. You can read the full article as well as other articles from MER for free by visiting digital.mailandexpressreview.com.
Having recently unveiled their Active Asset Tracking Solution at POST-EXPO, Prime Vision is once again pioneering new ways of working, this time by ingeniously converging several new technologies to solve an old problem.
Nadine Herrwerth, Account Director at Prime Vision, explains the advantages of Asset Tracking, the combination of technologies involved and the importance of successful partnerships when developing new products.
In my role at Prime Vision, I work tirelessly with our internal and external development teams to try to match the client’s wants and needs with what is technologically achievable. But the truth is, sometimes our goals, at that moment in time, are technically not possible or realistic. So rather than introduce a compromised, ineffective solution to the market, we work determinedly to create
the technology to catch up with our imagination.
Only a couple of years ago, but in what feels like a technological lifetime ago, Prime Vision first began to develop ideas and concepts for an Asset Tracking solution. We had a clear and exciting vision of what we thought the optimum solution had the potential to do. A IoT based system with functionality such as real-time tracking of single items, actionable data and predictive maintenance could revolutionise our industry. But the reality was, we faced a grim realisation of what we could actually achieve. The main obstacle was the actual ability, or more accurately, the inability and prohibitive costs of the technology involved. RFID had led the way for a while but was, and still proves to be, cumbersome, unreliable, technically restrictive and above all, financially unviable.
However, as we know, technologically, today is a very different world than it was only a couple of years ago. Things move fast: and in particular, innovations in Bluetooth and cellular networks have enabled a seismic shift in both costs and possibilities in what is now possible.
This year Prime Vision and our development partner, TWTG, launched our Active Asset Tracking Solution. A solution of which we are both extremely proud. A solution that for the first time delivers the pinpoint results and accuracy that Postal and Logistics companies have long demanded.
Multiple gateways placed every 100m² can provide accuracy to within a couple of metres.
The term tracking has probably been overused in the postal and logistics sector over the years. If you asked people within our industry, what’s the definition of the word “tracking”? Generally, the answer is a reference to finding something that’s lost. However, the true answer is “following a route or journey” The minute you stop ask where something is, that means you know exactly where your assets are.
So Asset Tracking is knowledge. Extremely accurate knowledge. In digital terms – Data. Knowing precisely where and when something was, is and will be. A true IoT solution.
The basis of the concept behind our solution is intelligent tags that are communicating with nearby modular gateways. All information is relayed through an IoT framework. Locations are ascertained via triangulation techniques and accordingly, the number and proximity (termed granularity) of the gateways, depends on the immediate operational requirements…
This article is an extract from the Winter Edition of MER Magazine published in August 2018. You can read the full article as well as other articles from MER for free by visiting digital.mailandexpressreview.com.
