Back to ArticlesHow IoT Solutions Optimise The Logistics Industry’s Process Efficiencies
- Published on - Jan 09, 2022
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Over the past few years, logistics operations have become increasingly complex owing to supplier relationships networked across geographies, multipart customer orders, and numerous milestones to manage in supply chains. Consumers’ growing preference for online shopping, too, has increased the number of shipments handled each day.
While businesses expect their logistics partners to help them with quick and efficient order fulfilment, the service providers face their own challenges. Some of these concern -
Traceability – It is essential to keep track of the consignments changing locations constantly before they reach the final point of delivery. Companies cannot manage this effectively if they depend on siloed communication via phone calls or messages to different personnel involved.
Fleet security – The failure of drivers controlling the duty vehicles to follow their designated routes can result in delayed order deliveries. Many logistics companies lack defined procedures to check their fleet movements, which impacts their operational efficiency.
Managing fuel costs – While logistics companies have no hold over rising fuel prices, they can certainly minimise their expenses by checking driver behaviour such as unnecessary idling and using improper routes. It also allows them to contribute to a greener supply chain. Unfortunately, most companies do not have a system to monitor driving styles.
Low productivity – Understaffing, overworked employees, and poor coordination between teams lead to low productivity. When transportation and last-mile personnel work in disorganised ways, they also miss delivery timelines and impair the customer experience.
Weak planning – Limited visibility into consignment locations, routes followed by vehicles, and delivery teams’ working styles also makes identifying specific weaknesses in supply chains and planning for better outputs challenging for the management.
Addressing logistics challenges with the Internet of Things
As the digital transformation wave sweeps across industries, the Internet of Things (IoT) is the key technology to build the future for the logistics industry. It helps to collect vast quantities of data in real-time to overhaul entire supply chains – from warehousing and asset management to transportation and last-mile deliveries.
A McKinsey study1 computed IoT to reduce logistics operational costs by 25% and lost sales by as much as 75%. Such numbers make it a business value driver for any logistics company. However, these financial upsides are not the only reasons motivating global supply chain managers to deploy IoT tools in their operations.
IoT plays a key role in addressing the industry’s and its stressed workforce’s challenges. It helps to:
Consolidate fragmented communication systems
Enhance security and transparency
Ensure proper storage conditions for temperature-sensitive products
Monitor vehicles and driving behaviour
Improve delivery time estimation
Manage transportation process remotely
Any supply chain manager can reap these benefits with customised, easy-to-deploy, and manageable IoT products. Tata Tele Business Services (TTBS) offers end-to-end IoT solutions to support real-time tracking and facilitate informed decision-making in the logistics sector. These include:
Asset Management
Our GPS-based Asset Management tool helps logistics companies trace the real-time location of their consignments in transit. It is a sleek plug-n-play device that can be placed in any container or vehicle and has a battery life of three to four days.
The tool’s special sensors help geofence assets to alert the back-office team if the shipments drift into areas not defined as authorised delivery routes.
Summarily, Asset Management enables logistics service providers to operate more efficiently, eliminate chances of theft, and improve customer experience with the timely delivery of their packages.
Fleet Management
For organisations maintaining vehicle fleets to transport bulk consignments, TTBS provides the Fleet Management Solution. The tool incorporates GPS sensors not only to track the concerned vehicle’s location but also to keep a tab on the driving style and fuel consumption.
Monitoring a truck/van in real-time assists the management team in ensuring the driver’s compliance to speed limits and avoid excessive idling and fuel wastage. It also provides geofencing entry/exit alerts and helps to keep a record of the total distance travelled by each vehicle.
In addition, TTBS Fleet Management comes with temperature sensors to ensure that medicines and perishable food products are being transported in suitable storage conditions
Workforce Management
To support logistics operations, TTBS also offers its Workforce Management system. Using this tracking tool, organisations can track their field force, including their check-in/check-out timing, the number of hours worked, and the locations they travelled to.
A thoughtfully planned mix of features – such as route definition and assignment, movement report, route replay, geofencing, task assignment via SMS, leave management, and an SMS button for emergency alerts – makes Workforce Management a very handy solution. Companies ready to adopt digitalisation for more productive operations and better customer service can derive measurable benefits from its deployment.
By automating the mobile workforce administration, this IoT system also prevents the errors accompanying manual data entries. It improves team collaboration to address the challenge of low productivity.
All information transmitted by TTBS Asset Management, Fleet Management, and Workforce Management tools is traced on user-friendly web-based dashboards accessible on desktops and mobile phones. Enterprises of all sizes can use them to make their supply chains more visible and leverage actionable insights for business growth.
Final thoughts
As logistics companies plan for the Industry 4.0 phase, the ones that ignore the advantages of IoT channels risk falling behind their competitors. With the constant evolution of IoT technologies, we will only see more benefits for supply chain management in the foreseeable future. The right time to invest in them is now.
If you wish to streamline your cargo deliveries by applying easy-to-use IoT platforms, please feel free to connect with Tata Tele Business Services at 1800-266-1515.
