The document discusses the strategic importance of asset tracking and management within the Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, highlighting various asset classes and the challenges associated with their management. It outlines inefficiencies and financial losses incurred by businesses due to poor asset utilization and emphasizes the need for a comprehensive asset tracking system to enhance operational efficiency. The document also outlines six critical elements required for an effective asset tracking solution, including sensors, location-based services, connectivity, and analytics.

1. This post was republished to Marketing-Epiphany at 5:24:33 PM 3/12/2018
Asset Tracking & Management: An IoT Strategic Imperative
One of the most compelling use cases in IoT is in the area of Asset Tracking and Management. Asset
classes can range from living, nonliving, transitory, stationary, remote to the accessible. An Asset
Tracking system designed for one asset class can rarely be redeployed for another asset class as is. Each
of the use cases and application scenarios are different and unique.
A further challenge to the emergence of a single dominant platform for managing assets is the
heterogenous nature of assets that firms typically employ, even within the same industry. Therein lies
the challenge of developing an Asset Tracking system; necessitating a multifaceted approach across
various disciplines.
Wastage in Businesses – Inefficiency or Cost of Doing Business?
Every year businesses across all sectors of the economy lose billions of dollars on account of the
following:
1. Excess Inventory on hand.
2. Low Asset Utilization and/or Asset Loss.
3. Non-identifiable, Non-trackable and Perishable supplies.
4. Labor costs associated with idling and/or unnecessary hauling of equipment.
5. Line stoppages and business interruptions due to missing supplies and/or equipment
breakdown.
6. Cost of expediated transportation.
The above challenges need a systemic approach to tackle the inefficiencies, but you can’t fix what you
don’t know.
Asset Tracking System: A Strategic Imperative
Activist investors are pressuring mismanaged firms to undertake a strategic review of how their
businesses are run. During the 2017 proxy season, activists launched 327 public campaigns against U.S.
companies, with $121 Billion1
under their management. Firms needs to proactively identify areas of
weakness in their sphere of activities and call for a course correction.
Here are a few examples where the use of Asset tracking can unleash hidden value, eliminate waste and
increase overall efficiency:
1. In Los Angeles and Long Beach, California home to the busiest container ports in the USA,
average truck turn time is around 82 minutes.2
2. According to a 2017 study by National Retail Federation U.S. businesses lose around $50 billion
annually to retail shrinkage.3
3. Transportation delays in-transit and on customer premises will cost US chemical manufacturers
an additional $22 billion in working capital on account of additional inventory held.4
4. Annually hospitals lose 20% of their equipment. Historically asset utilization in US Hospitals has
stayed around 40 percent, which means valuable assets such as IV pumps sit idle 60 percent of
the time.5

2. 5. In the USA, an average city water utility loses 30 percent of the water supplied through leaks or
un-billed usage.6
Asset Tracking System: A Competitive Advantage
The Internet has played an important role in the creation of new products-ideas, their diffusion and in
levelling the playing field across firms and industries. Gone are the days where quality management
systems such as TQM and Six Sigma enabled firms to leap frog competition.
The basis for competition in the hyperconverged world relies on achieving better quality with greater
agility, easier provisioning and lower administrative costs. It’s imperative for firms to adopt a system
wide view of their activities from procurement, design, manufacturing, operations, delivery, installation
to use.
A firm that can leverage enterprise knowledge, integrate best practices and leverage asset tracking data
can acquire a competitive advantage over its rival. To get there, firms need to invest on a platform that
can leverage multiple data points and in-house knowledge to unlock hidden value.
Asset Tracking: Passive, Active or Intelligent?

3. At the basic level passive asset tracking involves nothing more than an electronic label and reader (e.g.
RFID, NFC). One level higher is Active Tacking which entails connectivity, LBS (Location Based Services)
and some form of a sensor coupled to a power source.
An intelligent asset tracking solution adds an extra layer of complexity with On-Board Monitoring, of one
or more parameters of interest. Applications that require Real-Time resolution can now handle extreme
events and undertake preventative actions.
Asset Tracking and Management – The Six Critical Elements
A compelling Asset Tracking solution requires the delicate act of balancing six critical elements –
Sensors, Location Based Services (LBS), Connectivity, Power Consumption, On-Board Monitoring and
Analytics.
1. Sensors: The one analogy that I can think of when it comes to sensors is blood. Like blood,
sensors serve three main functions: convey, protect and regulate the asset under observation.
Sensors comes in all shapes, forms and functions the choice depends on what one intends to
monitor, control and prevent.
2. Location Based Services (LBS): For assets confined within a certain geographic radius (e.g.
hospitals, warehouses, factory floor) one can assign fixed location identifiers or use triangulation
(aided by beacons) to pinpoint location. If the asset under consideration involves a moving
target (e.g. trucks, drones, mining equipment, shipping containers) that requires real-time
monitoring one can select GPS or A-GPS (lower battery drain).
3. Connectivity: The choice of connectivity often boils down to the tracker location (local vs.
remote) and mobility (stationary vs. transitory) constraints. Additional requirements stem from
network reach and coverage – PAN, LAN, MAN or WAN. The choice for a reliable connection
range from NFC, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), ZigBee, ZigBee-IP, IEEE 802.11ah, WLAN to LPWAN

4. (SigFox, LoRa, RPMA, Symphony Link, Weightless, NB-IoT, LTE-M). To offset some of the
limitations arising out of cost, security and low power consumption gateway devices are often
deployed for last-mile connectivity.
4. Power Consumption: One of the key design metric in deploying trackers is whether to be
battery or grid powered. For remote or unreachable applications, the choice is often forced.
Additional constraints that dictate power usage include -Always ON, Alive When Spoken To and
Periodic Awake.
5. On-Board Monitoring: Applications that demand real-time monitoring have an additional
constraint: take preventative or corrective actions before it’s too late. In battery powered
devices there is a critical requirement to eliminate redundant data transfers or aggregate sensor
readings. Both these scenarios call for an On-Board monitoring system.
6. Analytics: What good is any data if you can’t act on it. The real value in any asset tracking
system is knowing how to develop real-world solutions based on the insights gathered. The
applications are numerous but just to list a few – Overall Equipment Efficiency, Defect
Monitoring & Classification, Predictive & Preventative Maintenance, Trend Analysis and the holy
grail using Machine Learning and AI to uncover hidden value.
A follow-on post will look at how various technologies can be leveraged and integrated to build a
solution from ground up, specifically for the trucking industry.
References:
1. The 2017 Proxy Season, Published by J.P. Morgan’s M&A Team, July 2017
2. Average Monthly Truck Turn Time, Harbor Trucking Association, 2015-2017
3. National Retail Security Survey 2017, NRF
4. Transporting growth: Delivering a Chemical Manufacturing Renaissance, American Chemistry
Council, March 2017
5. Industry Survey: Transformative Technology Adoption and Attitudes—Location Technologies, ABI
Research, 2Q 2017
6. Smart Water Network, Navigant Research, 2016
7. Prince, Jeffrey and Simon, Daniel H., Has the Internet Accelerated the Diffusion of New Products?
(April 1, 2009).
Acknowledgements:
In fond memory of Rev Fr. Agnelo Pinto and Rev Fr. Pat D'Lima whose guidance during my adolescent
years at St Paul’s High was instrumental in shaping who I am today.