Well, maybe not Nemo but a consignment of highly perishable seafood.  In today’s blog post, we will share a real-life scenario of how one of customers unexpectedly took advantage of the SENTRY network.  If you require a real time global tracking device, OnAsset can certainly provide it in our SENTRY product portfolio.  However, we understand and embrace that not all applications will require real time data.  Concurrently, we hold the belief that USB data loggers are outdated and do not offer enough value to our customers.  This foundation is what led us to install SENTRY Gateways at every major airport in the world.  The next piece of the puzzle is having a device that can communicate with the SENTRY Gateways.  Enter the Sentinel product portfolio.  

 

Last year, an existing user of our real time SENTRY device approached us about participating in a temperature lane analysis study for high value Seafood.  The lane was from Asia to the United States and lasted approximately three days.  As we explored the actual requirements of the application, it was clear that location data was not as critical as providing an excruciating level of detail on temperature performance.  The customer was concerned about temperature data being logged in extremely tight 10-minute increments.  We introduced our Sentinel logger product and the customer agreed it was a perfect fit for this application.  They immediately setup gateways at the origin in Asia and the final destination in the United States.

 

The initial study was a total of 16 shipments over three months.  The first few shipments instilled a level of confidence in the solution with our customer.  They were receiving a constant stream of temperature data as the device was at the origin.  Once the vehicle arrived at the dock doors of the destination, the Sentinel logger in the payload would immediately connect with the SENTRY gateway to offload all of the temperature information.  The logger would continue to collect the data until the shipment was unloaded and placed in cold storage.  All was well, until it wasn’t.  We received a support call over the weekend that a load was expected to arrive at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), but the airline had diverted the shipment to Dulles International Airport (IAD).  The logistics partner responded quickly and had a driver dispatched to IAD to recover the shipment.  However, the driver and the airline could not locate the Pallet.

 

Our support team quickly assessed the issue and realized this was an opportunity to leverage the newly deployed SENTRY gateway network.  Utilizing our Insight Software, we tracked the specific Sentinel Logger and isolated the unit to a specific SENTRY Gateway at a warehouse within IAD Airport.  This limited the search to approximately 300 meters.  The load was recovered in less than 30 minutes after this data was provided.

 

While location data was never in scope for this project, this immediately proved the value of our global network.  If the customer was deploying simple USB devices, the load would of never been recovered.  This would have resulted in an expired load costing the customer well into the five figures.

 

In our experience, a majority of misplaced shipments tend to take place at airports.  With our global gateway coverage, no longer do users need to choose between outdated USB loggers or cheap throw away tracking devices.   By utilizing one of our various Sentinel products in combination with our global network, users have the ability to minimize cost, reduce waste, and obtain all visibility insights needed.