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How the IoT Can Optimize Your Supply Chain In 2022
By Sree Durbha, Director of Product Management, Semtech Wireless and Sensing Products Group
Over the past two years, global supply chains have been largely disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in light of the disruptions the market has faced, many businesses are ready to reignite and future-proof their supply chains for a successful 2022 and beyond. So, how will they do it?
Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled technology is poised to be at the core of supply chain operations. By leveraging long range, low power connectivity, organizations will be able to better meet the needs of their customers and improve the agility and responsiveness of operations. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2023, 50% of global eCommerce enterprises will invest in real-time supply chain solutions, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics capabilities to respond to the recent disruptions we’ve faced. In 2022 and beyond, companies must apply technology-driven models throughout the entire supply chain – from first to last mile – to better prepare for the risks associated with supply chain management, product development and the sales lifecycle.
One area proving critical to smooth supply chain operations is smarter, more actionable asset tracking. And, as businesses invest in smart technologies to better monitor goods and increase productivity and profitability – deploying advanced asset tracking technology next year will be key. As more devices are expected to connect to the internet as organizations continue to shift toward a more technology-focused business strategy in the next year, those devices will require some form of localization capability either at the point of install or through an asset’s lifecycle. Asset management platforms matched with innovative battery-powered tracking devices for indoor/outdoor use will play a critical role in reducing cost and complexity in key applications such as pallet and warehouse equipment tracking, inventory and shipment management, trolley, cart and container tracking, medical equipment management and more.
IoT and Geolocation Services
Long range, ultra-low power IoT-connected solutions, which incorporate geolocation capabilities through the Cloud, can address these challenges head-on and help businesses develop and deploy affordable and simplified asset management platforms. Cloud-enabled geolocation solutions enable ultra-low power asset management platforms to automatically locate, track and monitor physical assets such as equipment, product, vehicles, frozen food, fresh produce, animals and people. Location data can easily be forwarded to any customer platform or system for simple integration and ease of use over a diverse set of tracking applications. Sensors leveraging flexible geolocation services enable production managers and engineers to remotely monitor the use, status, functionality and location of assets in real time. Further, sensors placed in delivery pallets allow manufacturers to track assets throughout the entire transit to help ensure products reach customers safely. For a number of supply chain tracking use cases such as cold chain monitoring, the frequency of updates needed (only a few times per day) and accuracy (several meters) of geolocation coordinates makes low power wide area network (LPWAN) connectivity enabled solutions hit the sweet spot of long battery life (years) and total cost of ownership. From transportation, logistics, retail, agriculture, healthcare and food services – a wide variety of industry enterprises can benefit from this technology moving forward with low power consumption manufactured at a price point that enables large-scale deployments.
When businesses have the insights and technology to help them understand where highly valued assets are on location or in transit – like expensive construction equipment on a job site or perishable goods being shipped across the country or globe – there are many benefits to reap such as loss prevention and an increase in job efficiency by automating manual processes. Solutions with an innovative, scalable and flexible technology hardware configuration matched with a device-to-Cloud architecture that enables customers to achieve an ideal balance between power consumption and accuracy are critical in solving the need to bring on the next normal of business. With such important data at hand provided by these solutions, businesses can transform this information into actionable insights quickly, which is critical in the quest to attain agile functions across the supply chain.
With long range, low power IoT-connected solutions, comprehensive asset management can be a simple Cloud API that can be easily integrated with LPWAN networks and application servers to enable location estimation with connected devices. Not only does this drastically simplify the management of endpoint solutions, but solutions like this can help to significantly reduce power consumption. In 2022, IoT-connected technology could be useful to put the disruptions brought on by 2020’s harsh events behind us.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sree Durbha has over two decades of experience in the wireless connectivity, networking, consumer electronics and computing industries in various business, marketing and engineering functions. Sree is the Director of Product Line Management in the Wireless and Sensing Group at Semtech. Most recently Sree was Sr. Director of Product Management at NXP Semiconductor (Marvell Wireless Connectivity Business) where he ran multiple hosted and host-less Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 802.15.4 combo products lines. Prior to joining Marvell, Sree co-founded an outdoor wireless mesh networking startup, Meshrocket and immediately before that he ran connectivity solutions at Qualcomm Atheros. Sree received his M.S., Electrical and Computer Engineering degree at the University of Kentucky and MBA, Entrepreneurship, Finance from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.