EXPERT INSIGHT

HOW LEVERAGING CONNECTED EXPERIENCES IN LOGISTICS CAN BUILD RESILIENT SUPPLY CHAINS?

We bring forward exclusive insights on absorbing IoT from Burak Ertuna, CIO & VP BPO – MEA region at DHL Global

IoT is no longer an axiom in the logistics sector. Innovations in cloud data storage, artificial intelligence, and cellular networks collectively drive a more connected experience in transport and logistics by enabling the monitoring of vehicles, improving security, and enhancing delivery time.

These advances also ensure proper storage of temperature-sensitive goods and streamline communications - this implies comprehensive benefits for logistics providers, generating actionable insights that drive transformation and new solutions. IoT’s vast potential to connect anything to the internet can accelerate data-driven logistics. Adapting these innovations into logistics ecosystems can give a company clear-cut transparency in its multiple operations, leading to a seamless inventory organization. Everyday objects can now send, receive, process, and store information and thus actively participate in logistics processes, from understanding customer needs in different markets to responding to them in real time. This has accelerated the connected experience in transport and logistics – enabling diversification for multinational businesses.Furthermore, IoT has particularly aided a vital role in the pandemic, where billions of highly temperature-sensitive vaccines were shipped worldwide. DHL used its connected network to safely deliver over 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to 160 countries.

Here, Burak Ertuna, CIO & VP BPO – MEA region at DHL Global, sheds light on leveraging connected experiences in logistics…

How to make IoT work for you IoT in logistics is an ecosystem that harnesses traditionally unconnected assets

and objects, turning them into tools for creating new solutions that benefit the entire supply chain. But how exactly do you build an IoT ecosystem as a logistics provider?

IoT devices must be embedded in your assets (warehouses and distribution centres) so that you can communicate with them using everything from cellularbased solutions to RFID and other connectivity technologies. Once you can share your assets, you need to feed the data to platforms and databases so that you can visualize the information. For example, monitoring environmental conditions is a critical use case demonstrating IoT’s time and resourcesaving value.

Knowing the environmental conditions along the supply chain is crucial. Until recently, monitoring a facility was a manual and time-consuming process. Someone would have to visit the devices distributed around the building to download the data. IoT has changed this. The latest machines are now connected using low-powered wide-area networks (LPWANs), which transmit information in real-time to a central platform and the customer. Transforming the future of logistics In cold chain monitoring, connected devices are used to track each shipment and monitor its condition throughout the journey. Many pharmaceutical products have to be transported and stored in temperature-controlled environments. IoT devices can be used to record and report conditions based on customer requirements, which means that customers can see their products stay within a specific temperature range, even during inspection or loading and unloading. As more drugs are being developed that require lower temperatures, the value of IoT in cold chain logistics is only set to grow further.

Lost freight is another significant issue plaguing the transport and logistics sector. However, thanks to IoT, logistics companies can monitor items moving around a warehouse, distribution centre, or supply chain. A shipment can easily be traced from when it is picked up to when it reaches its destination.

IoT technology also takes substantial physical pressure off employees, who no longer need to cross an entire warehouse to check on operations or stock levels. Smart shelves and sensors inform warehouse managers in real-time, and sensor-equipped transporters pick up heavy loads.

Leveraging the core strengths of IoT There’s little doubt that IoT solutions strengthen the supply chain while providing managers with the data they need to carry out daily operations and make well-informed strategic decisions. The transport and logistics sector in the UAE is already highly evolved as IoT, robotics, and automation have been widely adopted across the supply chain.

The challenge now is for the collected data to become a proven driver of higher efficiency and better service quality for the logistics industry. There is undoubtedly more sensor investment, and IoT systems have become more attractive to logistics operators than ever before. Still, the potential of IoT is yet to be fully tapped, and it has never been a better time to experience its real value in building a resilient supply chain.

Burak Ertuna, CIO & VP BPO – MEA region at DHL Global

“IOT DEVICES MUST BE EMBEDDED IN YOUR ASSETS SO THAT YOU CAN COMMUNICATE WITH THEM USING EVERYTHING FROM CELLULAR-BASED SOLUTIONS TO RFID AND OTHER CONNECTIVITY TECHNOLOGIES.”