Page 74 - Inbound Logistics | April 2017 | Digital Issue

It’s IoT Time

counts or a physical inventory regularly,”
Montgomery says.
Having proven the technology in
three aisles and dock staging areas,
Kenco is now implementing it through-
out the 750,000-square-foot facility.
Kenco Fleet Services Division is
already using Locatible’s active technol-
ogy to keep tabs on equipment it sends
out for short-term rentals. “We’re able to
track that inventory at a granular level—
how often it’s coming and going, even
how many times it’s moving in and out
of the maintenance shop, to get an idea
of how often we maintain that piece of
equipment,” Montgomery says. The
active tags don’t report location as pre-
After testing passive tags on large appliances, Kenco rolled out IoT tracking technology at cisely as the passive tags, but that isn’t
dock staging areas throughout its 750,000-square-foot facility. crucial for this use, she says.
the drivers, and because they have Locatible’s tracking devices are tags In another IoT development, in 2017
checked in on the app, DC workers see that come in two varieties. Passive tags Kenco challenged three teams of stu-
their ETA,” Braun says. “As drivers get transmit data only when they’re close to dents at the local science, technology,
closer to the facility, workers can pre- a reader. Active tags transmit data to a engineering, and math (STEM) high
allocate the parking area.” That might server periodically, as defined by the user. school to develop a way to warn super-
be a door, or a parking spot in the yard. In Kenco’s case, it’s every 15 minutes. visors visually when trucks have been
Most likely, the drivers have also pro- Kenco tested the passive tags on large parked at dock doors so long that Kenco
vided security information in advance. appliances in a 40,000-square-foot sec- might incur retention fines.
“So when they show up—similar to air- tion of a Kenco warehouse. The goal “The students are developing a sen-
port security—the security guard at the was to track the location of each appli- sor-based solution that would display
distribution center will just confirm the ance, which Locatible can do to within red, yellow or green and a timer clock,”
information already provided,” he says. 5 centimeters. Montgomery says. Yellow means the
Then drivers follow the instructions to “When the material handling truck truck is due to leave soon; red means
the assigned parking spot. picks up a group of appliances, a it has missed its deadline. Kenco will
If drivers are also scheduled to pick reader mounted on the truck reads the choose one solution for further devel-
up an outbound load, the app allows tag on each unit,” Montgomery says. opment, including integration with
them to go elsewhere for a while, rather Comparing xyz coordinates for that its warehouse and yard manage-
than wait in the DC. The app provides location with a schematic drawing of ment systems.
load status updates, so they can return the facility, the system calculates where
to the DC when the shipment is ready. the appliances are. The same thing hap- Waxing Poetic
pens when the truck places the product While some companies focus their
Where’s the in a new location. IoT efforts on transportation and logis-
Washing Machine? The system also notices mistaken tics, others are peering all the way down
Kenco Logistics in Chattanooga, moves. “If an operator picks up an the supply chain to the end user. One
Tenn., recently implemented two ver- appliance and moves it more than 5 of those is supply chain service provider
sions of an IoT technology, one for centimeters from the location where it’s ModusLink, which is developing new
tracking product in its warehouses, and supposed to be, they’ll immediately get applications for Poetic, an IoT platform
the other for tracking leased material an alert on the tablet device mounted it acquired in 2008 along with a com-
handling equipment. The technology, to the material handling equipment,” pany called Open Channel Solutions
developed by Locatible, a Dublin firm Montgomery says. “It won’t let operators (OCS).
with offices in Chattanooga, is simi- do another task until they put it back in Poetic was first developed to man-
lar to radio frequency identification the right location.” age software licenses and entitlements.
(RFID) technology but uses different Although that feature helps to avert Today, ModusLink is adding applications
technology—Bluetooth and Wi-Fi— errors, Kenco’s main goal is to reduce that would, for example, track how an
and costs less to deploy, says Kristi labor costs. “I know exactly where every end consumer uses a product, generating
Montgomery, Kenco Logistics’ vice product is within the confines of my both marketing and replenishment data.
president of innovation. building, so I shouldn’t have to do cycle One of the companies exploring

72 Inbound Logistics • April 2017