- Expanding the possibilities for low-power tracking across the supply chain
- Hub and spoke approach strengthens the business case for IoT tracking of lower-cost assets such as pallets and containers
hoopo Systems Ltd., a provider of low-power tracking solutions, has launched its novel Mobile Access Point (Mobile AP) for customers in the asset pooling business. The new product creates a dynamic infrastructure that acts as a hub for hundreds of LPWA (low-power, wide-area) tracking devices. The solution enables low-power, cost-efficient devices to report asset location nationwide without the need for extensive infrastructure that is usually required for such use-cases.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced businesses to focus on efficiency, using resources as wisely as possible to navigate an extremely unpredictable market. In uncertain times, the abilities to minimize costs and rapidly respond to market changes are essential for coping with demand fluctuations and promoting successful operations.
The bimodal supply chain strategy describes two modes of operation:
- Mode one focuses on predictability. This means operating as lean and efficient as possible for maximum cost reduction, as well as managing predictable swings and inventory fluctuations and focusing on risk mitigation and prevention.
- Mode two focuses on exploration. In this mode, businesses operate in agile, dynamic, and quick ways to solve new challenges and adopt new technologies.
Especially in a highly volatile economy, successful businesses must operate in modes one and two simultaneously. Implementing a tracking solution proves valuable to both modes. Creating visibility and generating location-based data is the first step in creating valuable insights and predictive analytics. Once performance-based data is generated, the ability to predict failures in operational processes, and to react quickly to them, significantly improves.
Until LPWA (low-power, wide-area) technologies entered this market, tracking solutions were too expensive or not accurate enough for effective implementation in several supply chain sectors, especially those that deal with high volumes of assets (e.g. pallet or container poolers), hoopo states. LPWA solutions enable power-efficient tracking, expanding the ability to track high volumes of assets and different types of equipment. These solutions, however, usually require extensive infrastructure, which significantly increases their total cost of ownership.
To avoid extensive infrastructure, cellular-based tracking solutions are often used. While these are self-powered and run on the existing cellular network, they require high capital investment and operational expenses. As such, they significantly increase the ownership cost. Therefore, cellular-based tracking solutions are not suitable for tracking high volumes of assets.
The hoopoMobile Access Point was developed especially to deal with complex operations involving high volume of assets. It acts as a mini gateway, enabling LPWA (LoRa™) communication for the low-power, cost-efficient hoopoSense trackers. Once it gets information from the hoopoSense trackers, it forwards the location data to the hoopoLogic =Platform. Although the hoopoMobile AP is cellular-based, it sets itself apart from conventional cellular solutions by serving as a hub for hundreds of LPWA trackers, enabling location data to be generated in an extremely power and cost-efficient manner.
The new hoopoMobile AP enables visibility across the entire supply chain while maintaining remarkably low costs, hoopo concludes.