The value of environmental sensing

Learn why knowing environmental information from your asset will help optimizing your asset fleet and work processes.

A large amount of added value can be created for your IOT tracking solution when other information than only location of an asset can be remotely monitored.

Using the feature offered by the environmental sensing service, you can reduce the time and money spent on manual measurements and inspections because the following is possible:

  • Monitor environmental conditions without manual interactions.
  • Have proof of quality of environmental conditions of your assets during transport.

The value of temperature and humidity sensing

Some goods are sensitive to environmental conditions to avoid degradation of their quality. For these type of goods it is important to know and have proof that they are kept in the correction conditions, including during transport. Typically, for example, temperature and humidity sensing is often done manually using a measurement device that is not connected to the internet - or the conditions are not monitored at all.

This results in:

  • Time lost for reading out temperature and humidity loggers manually.
  • No quality monitoring during transport itself.
  • No proof that the quality conditions are met.

With the external BLE sensors of Sensolus you will be able to monitor environmental conditions without manual interactions and have proof of quality of transport.

The value of contact sensing

Container doors can be left or forced open without users knowing.

This can result in:

  • Loss of goods.
  • Unwanted visitors.
When a magnetic contact sensor is placed on the container door you will be able to detect if a door is open or closed and get notified if a door has been opened or stayed open for too long.
Note: The minimum time a door should be open to be detected as open is one minute.

The value of fill level sensing

Waste containers are often equipped with connected trackers to know where they have to be picked up. But it would be much better if it is also known when they should be picked up. This is needed when they are almost full or full because then the waste container should be emptied or moved to another location to be emptied. Not knowing their fill level status results in:

  • Too late collection of the waste container so they are overflowing and pollute the environment.
  • Too early collection of the waste container if they are not yet full and come with a suboptimal manpower investment.

When a fill level sensor is placed on the waste container you will be able to:

  • Get remotely notified about the fill level of the waste container.
  • Know the lid position of the waste container.
  • Know when the waste container has been emptied.
  • Optimize stock management, transport of goods and workflows in general.

Fill level sensors can also be used to monitor the fill level of liquid containers and Intermediate Bulk Containers (IBC's).

The value of load detection sensing

Airport dollies at airports are often equipped with connected trackers to know where they are located. But it would be much better if it is also known if they are loaded (not available for use) or not loaded (available for use). The same is true for Returnable Transport Packaging (RTP's) and probably a lot of other assets. Not knowing the loading status of your asset results in:

  • Unnecessary movements to assets to use but that are in fact not available as they are already loaded.
  • Failure to timely know that an asset is already loaded, and in this way ready to ship.
  • Failure to timely know that goods are already delivered and unloaded.

When a load detection sensor is placed on the asset you will be able to:

  • Know where assets can be found that are loaded and ready to be shipped.
  • Know where assets can be found that are empty and ready to be picked up to be cleaned, returned or used for another shipment.
  • Get notified when new goods are delivered.
  • Get notified when goods have been handled to the next transport phase.

The value of orientation sensing

For foldable RTP's it can be important to know whether the RTP is folded or not because it tells something about the status of your asset. It may tell you if the RTP is loaded or not, or if it is ready to be shipped. Knowing the orientation of scissor lifts can also be interesting as a scissor lift must be folded to be ready to be picked up. Knowing if a waste container is emptied can also be monitored with the embedded orientation sensor in the tracker attached to a waste container. Not knowing the orientation of these assets lowers the value of attaching a tracker as there is a lack of important information to optimally the workflow.

When the orientation sensor is used you will be able to:

  • Data about the state of an asset for example if the foldable RTP is closed).
  • Know when an event happened (for example when the waste container is emptied).
  • Define orientation based KPI's on your asset fleet (for example: how many containers were emptied last week and how did the KPI change over time).