Track your cargo documents on the go

An IoT tracker that records reliable location data and remains unnoticed by thieves at the cargo documents throughout the transport is at the heart of this success story.

The customer

Lufthansa Cargo is the logistics specialist of the German Lufthansa Group. With a turnover of EUR 2.8 billion and handling 6.5 billion tonnes of goods by 2020, this cargo transporter is one of the world's leading companies in the transport of air freight. The company currently employs around 4,400 people worldwide. Lufthansa Cargo focuses primarily on the 'airport-to-airport' business. The cargo carrier serves about 300 destinations in more than 100 countries with its own fleet of cargo planes, cargo ships and an extensive service network for road hauliers.  

Their challenge

The consignment note - or cargo document - is the ultimate means of evidence for determining any liability. It proves receipt and delivery by the carrier to the consignee and is indispensable as evidence if the goods are damaged or lost. The consignment note is, together with permits/diplomas etc., the document on which (inter)national police and port inspections check whether the carrier is authorised to transport the goods. A consignment note is legally required and the absence of a consignment note is an economic offence.

It is therefore not surprising that air cargo carriers such as Lufthansa Cargo want to be sure at all times that the cargo documents are filled in correctly, but above all that they know where the documents are physically located during the entire transport. But monitoring this turns out to be a hassle, on the one hand because Lufthansa does not know who sent the waybills in Belgium or Africa, and on the other because there is no way of knowing where the physical documents are located.

And this can cause major problems at the airport customs where the arrived goods have to be claimed for further local road transport. Delays in obtaining a transport document incur costs and delay the release of goods, which can be detrimental to the customer.

Their briefing to us

Important requirements in the search for a suitable system were for Lufthansa Cargo:

1. The reliability of the track & trace signal during the entire transport route
2. Inconspicuous tracker to prevent discovery and removal
3. Recycling trackers for reuse
   

Our solution? A mini tracker with maximum range

Upon hearing their story, and discussing the questions the company had regarding the reliability, theft protection and reusability of the trackers, we knew that our TAG WIFI.world offered the ideal solution.

This high-performance tag is the ideal solution for locating durable or valuable goods or assets anywhere in the world, no matter where they are: indoors or outdoors, in urban areas, sea terminals or airports; this tracker even works in metal containers. Your assets are not always easy to equip with an anti-theft system or track & trace. The unit must be small enough to be placed on the asset (hidden or not). Moreover, such a system often needs a power supply from an external battery.

Thanks to its compact size (87x53x8.5mm) and a rechargeable internal battery that remains on standby for 3 months (provided one position per hour), the TAG WIFI.world is the solution of choice for Lufthansa and meets the 3 product requirements.  

The location is determined by WiFi sniffing and triangulation. The detected signal is then transmitted via a SIM card - with 98% global coverage and without roaming fees - to the online management platform where Lufthansa Cargo employees can track the trackers by shipment.

In practice

Lufthansa uses our TAG WIFI.world to track and trace their cargo documents. The TAG is sent with the documents and is, due to its small size and light weight, almost undetectable. On receipt of the goods, the TAG WIFI.world is simply returned to Lufthansa for the next shipment via a pre-addressed return envelope. On the management platform they now also have a complete overview of all documents per flight.

During the demo, Pieter Huygens, Manager Handling Belgium at Lufthansa Cargo, saw how accurately the data was recorded over the entire transport route, and how easily you could zoom in on the exact location in the software, even into the desolate desert of Ethiopia. He immediately saw the benefit for his business operations:

Thanks to the use of the All-Connects tracker for monitoring our cargo documents from Africa, we now have a foolproof process that allows us to know the exact location of these important documents at any time.

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The exact location is transmitted to the platform at a certain time interval. This interval can be speeded up or slowed down during the journey if required. The location is displayed in a timeline and on a map. You can zoom in and change the map layout to get a better idea of where the tracker is.

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