Assets and what they carry
In a supply chain, an asset is a thing worth keeping track of: a pallet, a shipping container, a trailer, a returnable crate, a reusable tote, a cage trolley or a piece of expensive equipment. A second category is the goods inside them. Both can go missing, sit idle or be damaged, and each of those events costs money.
Asset tracking aims to answer where an item is, how long it has been there and, for some devices, what condition it is in. The Internet of Things adds the ability to answer without a person walking around with a clipboard.
Why assets get lost or underused
Reusable containers are a good example. A company may own thousands of crates that travel to customers and are meant to come back. Some are left in corners of customer warehouses, some are used for other purposes, and some are simply not counted. The business responds by buying more crates, or by holding extra as a buffer, when the real problem is visibility.
The same pattern appears with trailers waiting in yards, equipment in the wrong depot, and pallets that circulate among partners. Information that would solve it, namely where each one is, is missing.
Tracking options
How an asset is tracked depends on its value, how far it travels, and how often location is needed.
- Barcodes and printed labels are cheap and need a scan at each step. They work well where handling points are controlled, but depend on people or fixed scanners doing the scanning.
- Radio tags can be read automatically by fixed readers at doors and gates, giving a location event whenever an item passes. They show where an asset was last read rather than where it is now.
- Active trackers have their own power source and radio, and report position on their own. They suit high-value or long-haul assets, but cost more and need power management. Planning for battery life is central, since a tracker that dies halfway through a journey leaves a gap. Long-lasting designs use low-power networks and send only occasional updates; some use energy harvesting or solar sensors to extend life.
- Short-range beacons around a site support indoor location, such as finding which dock a trailer is at, which satellite positioning cannot do reliably indoors.
The right choice is usually the cheapest one that answers the real question. A tracker costing more than the asset it follows is rarely sensible, which is one reason low-value items often get only a label.
Conditions, not just location
Some devices also measure what happens to the goods:
- Temperature, where a product must stay within a range. Detailed treatment of that case sits under the cold chain; the principle here is the same for other temperature-sensitive goods.
- Humidity, which can cause mold, corrosion or damp packaging. Humidity sensors are inexpensive and often combined with temperature.
- Shock and tilt, which can show that a package was dropped, hit or turned over.
- Light exposure, which can indicate that a sealed container was opened.
- Pressure or door status in containers and trailers.
These readings let a company see not just that a pallet arrived late but that it spent four hours somewhere too warm or took a hard impact. That helps decide who is responsible and whether goods are still usable.
What this means for waste
Waste in a supply chain comes from several sources, and tracking touches each in different ways.
- Spoilage. Goods that spend too long outside their allowed conditions may have to be discarded. Early alerts give a chance to fix the problem while the goods are still good.
- Damage. Shock records can show where in the journey handling went wrong, so the cause can be addressed instead of repeated.
- Loss and theft. Knowing last-known location speeds searching and discourages careless handling.
- Excess stock and equipment. If a company knows how many crates it really has and where, it can buy fewer.
- Disputed claims. Condition records can settle arguments quicker, reducing time wasted on paperwork.
These gains are possible, not automatic. A sensor that reports a problem only helps if someone is positioned to act, and the benefit differs by product type, route and how much waste there was in the first place. Reducing waste of goods also reduces the wasted energy and materials that went into producing them, but the devices themselves have an environmental cost and eventually become electronic waste, so end-of-life handling is worth planning.
Limits and cautions
- A reading is not proof of a cause. A shock sensor tells you something happened, not who was responsible.
- Sensors can be wrong. Placement matters: a probe near a door reads differently from one in the middle of a pallet, as covered under sensor placement. Drift and poor calibration can create false confidence.
- Coverage gaps. Containers stacked in ports or ships at sea may block signals, leaving long periods without updates.
- Anomalies need attention. Large volumes of readings are only helpful if software flags the unusual, using methods such as anomaly detection, and staff respond.
- Recovery of devices. Trackers that travel with shipments can be lost; plans for return or reuse affect the real cost.
Starting small
Pick one category of asset that is known to go missing or sit idle, such as a type of returnable crate, and record where it is for a few months. Compare the count of what the company believes it owns with what it finds. The gap is often the clearest case for deciding whether broader tracking is worth the cost.