Good News: M2M-Based Asset Tracking Is Getting More Affordable

By Brian Albright, Field Technologies magazine

Real-time temperature monitoring has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in claims for this third-party transportation broker.

Shipping perishable goods is fraught with risk. If the temperature of the load rises too high because of a malfunction on the refrigerated truck, or if the load is delayed, the shipper risks losing tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of goods. Having a real-time view of both the location and temperature of the load could help prevent losses, but the technology required has traditionally been too expensive to deploy on a wide scale.

Prices for both the sensors and wireless communications required for this type of tracking are falling, and Allen Lund Company, a national third-party transportation broker, now offers exactly that type of visibility for its customers. So far, customers opting to use the temperature tracking service have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in spoilage avoidance.