Pallet tracking technologies have changed significantly over the last 20 years. Let me take you back to a time when I was still rocking my acid wash jeans and the well-traveled corduroy sports jacket that my wife has long since donated to charity. Radio frequency identification (RFID) was trending, at least in logistics publications and at trade shows. Unlike scanning a barcode, interrogating an RFID chip didn’t require a direct line of sight, heralding a new era of automated data capture. Instead of stopping to methodically scan each box or a pallet, you merely drove past a portal as you loaded or unloaded a pallet of merchandise, and information was instantly captured on the fly. At the time, some of us thought it was a big deal.
It turns out that the market didn’t entirely agree. RFID has been a big success — but not necessarily for pallets. RFID did enjoy some wins in the pallet space. A number of applications in manufacturing/automotive proved successful and major plastic pallet pools have been tagged such as iGPS, Japan Pallet Rental (7.5 million tagged pallets) and NLP in Norway. NLP utilizes RFID for pool operations, to track cycles and repairs, and so on, while JPR uses it to ensure the accuracy of outbound pallet shipments, among other things.
RFID-tagged pallets are only visible at read locations, however. Between read points, there are no real-time insights into pallets or the merchandise they carry. Concerns about visibility have been one of the drivers for the shift in emphasis from RFID to Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, but I’ll return to that thought below. Here are some things to think about when it comes to pallet tracking circa 2020.
How Big of a Deal Are Pallet Sensors Going to Be?
IoT is going to be huge in generating crucial data, and research suggests that supply chains are clamoring for it, but will it be transformational for pallets? In looking at some recent market reports, there is reason for doubt. A study on pallet sensors suggests that the market will grow at 4.2% annually through 2027 — not exactly explosive growth when you consider that another analysis estimates pallet industry sales growth at 5.6% annually over the same period. So, it seems like pallet market growth will outpace pallet sensor growth. Overall, however, IoT is pegged to grow at a loftier 14.8%. Bottom line, the growth is there for IoT, but analysts aren’t necessarily seeing it for pallets.
The numbers above tend to paint the pallet market in one broad brushstroke, but the reality is that some segments will generate much greater interest in pallet tracking than others. Reusable pallet systems as well as some supply chains, such as pharma or perishables, can be expected to have a higher uptake.
As alluded to above, IoT technologies have become front and center for pallet tracking. Unlike RFID, a reader infrastructure is not required. Complete supply-chain visibility is increasingly achievable, and implementation of cloud-based tracking, according to vendors, can be almost as easy as applying IoT sensors to pallets. And you don’t necessarily need to tag a lot of pallets or spend a lot of money to gain valuable insights about how pallets are moving through your supply chain.
Wood Pallets Are Not at a Disadvantage
One of the talking points in the past has been that sensors make best sense on extremely long-lasting plastic pallets. In November, the Pallet Alliance Inc. (TPAI) launched its IntelliPallet™, a turnkey, IoT-enabled platform and supply-chain managed service for wood pallets. Mike Jones and Tyson Steffens of TPAI told me that it can make perfect sense to affix devices to wood pallets in managed systems where they are repeatedly repaired as necessary. “We can still repair pallets even when they are wired up for IoT,” Steffens said.
One challenge for technology companies new to wood pallets concerns device design, attachment and placement so it is not vulnerable to damage, loss or theft. Nimbelink, for example, is currently prototyping its new AT6 cellular device which is purposely designed for attachment to pallet stringers. Players with familiarity regarding device placement on wood pallets are more likely to avoid problems.
There Are Now More Pallet Tracking Flavors than Banana Pineapple
TPAI has come to recognize that it is important to pay attention to the goals of an intended application rather than coming into a project with preconceptions about what type of tracking technology to use. In TPAI’s experience (and I have heard this from other providers), there is rarely a “one size fits all” solution. In the past, Jones and Steffens joked, a customer could have any flavor they liked, as long as it was banana pineapple. It is important to understand the variables — for example, the cost of the asset being tracked, what they want to measure (shock, temperature, etc.), how often they need updates, how long the device needs to last, and their budget. TPAI is currently working with cellular, Bluetooth and LORA (WPLAN) technologies.
The emphasis on flexibility extends beyond the choice of tracking technologies. From Day 1, said, David Houghton, general manager of asset tracking solutions at NimbeLink, his company has worked to develop what he calls “a unique device personality-based on your use case.”
NimbeLink’s position is that each use case is dynamic and may change over time in terms of factors such as geofences, allowable thresholds, and alerts. This approach allows users to easily change the parameters as needed. “Today’s profile may be different than tomorrow’s profile, and you need to have the ability to make those changes,” he said. “You create these unique, diverse device personalities to allow each of the people to control their environment based on the vertical.”
What About Pools?
While the discussion above relates to the customization of tracking devices, how does it inform pallet pools that weigh their options for uniformly tagging perhaps millions of pallets, given that needs may vary from customer to customer? For the most part, there hasn’t been a lot of corporate announcements in this area.
One of the more transparent pools has been EPAL. EPAL’s iPAL initiative saw it begin testing 500 pallets fitted with NB-IoT (cellular) devices in 2018. The test was deemed successful, and research partners at Fraunhofer IML are still working on the associated platform. “Nevertheless, the cost of tracking technology is still the showstopper for complete roll-out,” commented Michael Brandt, project coordinator for iPAL.
This year, the Enterprise Lab has focused on inkjet printing of unique QR codes to develop serialized pallets. Pilot customers will be shipped QR-coded pallets until the end of February to evaluate usability and acceptance of the serialized pallets. While not providing the same level of insight as IoT solutions, serialization of pallets with QR codes may prove to be a cost-effective way to associate each unique pallet with a read-point time, location and event such as pallet return, repair or load manifest.
Where tracking will go in the next 20 years nobody knows for sure, but industry insiders remain enthusiastic. “I think, in general, you can expect supply chains to light up (achieve visibility through IoT) from the bottom up,” stated Houghton of NimbeLink. “It’s usually top-down. I think we’re going to see the bottom light up too.”
