Issue link: https://jocdigital.uberflip.com/i/1095037
30 The Journal of Commerce | April 1 2019 www.joc.com Supply Chain Visibility Special Report CONNECTED DEVICES IN container shipping need to be interoperable among the various providers of such solutions, but they also just need wider adoption from shippers and ocean carriers to reduce unit costs, a group of shippers, carriers, and sensor providers told the 2019 TPM Conference in Long Beach in March. A wave of new and existing providers of such technology have cropped up in recent years with solutions to help make containers a usable part of the Internet of Things (IoT). The goal is to provide shippers with more accurate, up-to-date location data and better analytics about where — and why — cargo bottlenecks occur. Among the providers of such solutions are Traxens, Savi, Arviem, and newer entrants such as Sensor- Transport, Loginno, and EyeSeal. There are multiple deployment models for sensors. Some companies sell the hardware and an analytics platform to ingest and analyze the tracking data separately, while some sell the hardware and analytics platform as a bundled service, and others sell a standalone system that can process data from sensors made by other companies. And even the lines between those types of provider aren't always clear. Traxens, for example, sells its devices to container lines to be affixed to containers and sells the location data and analytics to shippers, while Savi sells the devices (which are designed to be reused) and an associated analytics platform to shippers and third-party logistics providers (3PLs). Arviem manages the devices itself and charges the shippers a bundled cost for the service. SensorTransport, meanwhile, doesn't sell sensors, but provides what it calls a device-agnos- tic platform to shippers. Lower-cost container visibility tied to adoption and improved interoperability of solutions By Eric Johnson Tech on track