Featured in The Wall Street Journal
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Smaller, robust labels are making tracking more precise by sending out location and other data
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Parcel tracking technology is moving beyond the days of having workers manually scan barcodes.
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Package carriers are starting to tag some shipments with devices that emit signals tracking the exact whereabouts of parcels in transit, similar to how smartphones cast a signal marking their location. The devices use cellular networks, Bluetooth and radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology to transmit the information.
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The devices are a step forward from the shipment-tracking information widely available today, which relies on workers scanning barcodes as packages enter and leave warehouses or vehicles. That tracking point typically lags behind a package’s current location, leaving gaps in visibility where packages may be misplaced or lost.
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Carly West, an analyst with research firm Gartner, said supply chain operators are looking to the new tracking technology to better manage shipments and deliveries.
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“People are more interested in getting to that level of granularity of what’s happening with the product as it’s moving, versus just being able to track the container or where the driver of a truck is,” West said.
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The latest devices typically are relatively small, the size of a stamp or a postcard, making the technology more useful in parcel shipping operations.
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West said the tags also are more expensive than systems now used to track packages manually, limiting their use in typical household goods orders. The devices for now are mostly being used by logistics operators to get better visibility into their supply chains as well as companies looking to closely track shipments of high-value goods.
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“It’s a little bit cost-prohibitive still today to apply one of those solutions to every single package,” West said. “The costs are just a little bit too high for that to happen at a mass scale.”
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The U.K.’s postal service, Royal Mail, over the summer began attaching postage stamp-sized tags made by Israeli startup Wiliot onto rolling carts that it uses to transport letters and packages across the country.
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Nathan Preston, technology director for strategy, innovation and data at Royal Mail, said the carrier wanted to get better visibility into its operations to help cut shipping costs and deliver more items on time. Royal Mail previously tracked its delivery vehicles but had limited visibility into what was on each truck.
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The Wiliot devices, which use Bluetooth technology, have helped Royal Mail cut down on the number of partly empty trucks on the road and to identify vehicles that frequently run behind schedule, Preston said.
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Royal Mail plans to extend the service in the coming years to track individual parcels. “If you’re ordering currency from somewhere or a new high-cost technology device … you want confidence that you can check it at any point in the journey and know exactly where it is,” Preston said.
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The Wiliot devices cost 30 cents each, making them more palatable for many conventional parcel operations. But many of the tracking devices cost as much as $50 apiece, limiting their use for now to more industrial applications as well as shipping high-value goods such as healthcare products, electronics and luxury items.
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AT&T earlier this year unveiled a so-called smart label that uses cellular networks to transmit tracking information in close to real time. The telecommunications company said manufacturing and logistics companies are using the labels to track high-value shipments. The devices cost about $40 to $50 apiece and roughly $25 to $30 each in bulk quantities.
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Many of the tracking devices include sensors that monitor temperature, humidity and shocks, such as a package being dropped.Package delivery giant United Parcel Service sells a tracking service to healthcare companies that uses technology including RFID and cellular networks to track shipments within 10 feet of their locations.
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The technology, which also monitors the temperature and other factors affecting shipments, was used during the Covid-19 vaccine rollout to ensure that shots were maintained at the needed ultracold temperatures during transport.
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UPS has been extending its use of newer tracking technology into its network shipping consumer goods. The company is rolling out the use of RFID tags in its small-package delivery network to identify what it calls misloads, where packages are loaded onto the incorrect delivery van. UPS is tagging each package with a device that automatically sets off a sensor as it’s loaded into a delivery van. The sensor makes a noise indicating whether the package is on the right or wrong vehicle.
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“We are moving from a scanning network to a sensing network,” said UPS Chief Executive Carol Tomé on an earnings call July 23.
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Rival FedEx has also been ramping up its tracking capabilities. FedEx has a service called SenseAware that offers live internal package tracking information via Bluetooth-enabled sensors. The parcel carrier said packages carrying the sensors are tracked hundreds of times versus dozens of times with traditional package scans.
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FedEx also uses various sensors to track packages, pallets, trailers and warehouses throughout its network, the company said.