Phil Reid (CouriersPlease)
Optus has implemented an internet of things (IoT)-based tracking system for logistics company CouriersPlease, leveraging technology from Thinxtra.
The Singtel-owned telecommunications company implemented IoT tracking devices fixed to 3,500 transport 'cages', providing real-time data for visibility over CouriersPlease's Australian fleet.
Powered by Thinxtra’s 0G Network, the solution was sought due to the high amounts of packages going missing due to misplacement or theft.
"With demand for our services on the rise, we found our transport cages – which can carry between 60 to 600 packages each – were increasingly going walkabout. They were disappearing due to theft, or simply left sitting in our commercial customers’ facilities, unidentified for return,” said Phil Reid, chief operating officer at CouriersPlease.
"We have doubled our assets, and that introduces increased risk. As our business continues to expand, it has become crucial we can track their whereabouts in real time. This will nullify losses of the expensive cages, which cost $1,000 per unit, while allowing us to keep pace with higher volumes of deliveries."
Reid added that the courier company had considered 4G options, but chose Optus and Thinxtra due to their collaborative asset tracking backed by battery powered LPWAN-based IoT sensors.
CouriersPlease began deploying Thinxtra’s IoT devices in October. Once implemented, the devices will send location information from the cages to a dashboard where CouriersPlease can see their location in real time.
"There are multiple ways to handle asset tracking, but the main challenge organisations face is doing so in a cost-effective manner – it doesn’t make sense to put $400 trackers into $1,000 cages, nor do we want to overwhelm our clients with huge amounts of data they don’t need,” said Zorawar Singh, head of product at Optus Enterprise.
“We built an IoT solution based on low-power wide-area network (LP-WAN) technology for CouriersPlease, which is connected to Thinxtra’s powerful and national 0G network as we believed it provided the best solution at the greatest value for the customer.”
Every pre-configured Thinxtra device has a battery life of more than five years, the company added.
CouriersPlease, a subsidiary of Singapore Post (SingPost), said it planned to use Optus to continue transforming parts of its network.
This year saw Thinxtra appoint former Boomi executive Nicholas Lambrou as its new CEO, replacing Loïc Barancourt, who co-founded Thinxtra in 2015.
