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Carts, as indispensable tools for transporting goods across warehouses, stores, and distribution centers, demand meticulous management to ensure seamless workflows. However, as retail operations continue to expand in scale, traditional manual management methods are increasingly inadequate, struggling to keep pace with the growing demands and difficulties of modern cargo handling. This is where connected asset tracking beacons emerge, with an aim to revolutionize the way carts and other assets are managed. Transform warehouse efficiency with our proven smart warehouse cart tracking system.
Challenge
A supermarket warehouse in South Africa faces severe management challenges due to outdated manual management practices. Covering large scale, the warehouse has tens of thousands of shelves stocked with various products. To facilitate inventory movements, the facility relies on a fleet of thousands of carts, which employees use to transport goods among loading bays, storage zones and display areas.
However, the absence of a digital tracking system has led to chronically poor management of these carts. Under the current manual management process, employees are expected to return carts to designated zones after use, but things often don’t go as planned. Hundreds of carts remain unreturned for days or even weeks, often stranded in remote corners of the warehouse. Also, staff frequently discover carts left idle in some hidden areas, where they go unnoticed for extended periods. Seasonal checks reveal that some carts are missing, either misplaced or damaged, which causes financial losses. These limitations of the current method highlight an urgent need for a better solution.
Solution
To solve these problems, a more connected warehouse cart tracking solution has been introduced. Equipped BLE beacons to each cart, these carts will be tracked in real-time. These BLE beacons, integrated with a 3-axis accelerometer, are designed to detect the movements of the carts. When the accelerometer does not detect any movement over an extended period, the cart will be marked as idle. This intelligent feature not only aids in identifying underutilized carts, but also plays a pivotal role in optimizing cart resources. By combining the real-time location data provided by BLE beacons, warehouse staff will accurately locate these carts, which contributes to schedule cart resources scientifically and enhance work efficiency.
Another outstanding point would be the geofence. By strategically placing BLE gateways throughout the warehouse, a virtual geofence will be established to prevent carts from being moved out of the designated area to a maximum. Setting well with our beacons, when a cart attempts to break through the fence, the platform will trigger an alert to notify staff immediately via gateway. This proactive approach enhances cart safeguard significantly. As a result, our hardware fosters a more organized and safer warehouse environment combined with client’s software, contributing to a more efficient retail supply chain.
Featured product
The portable M2 BLE asset beacon is designed to monitor inventory or other critical assets in both indoor and outdoor applications. With multiple installation options, M2 is easy to install either by screws or a sticker, catering to a wide range of deployment scenarios. Moreover, M2 is equipped with a replaceable battery, ensuring uninterrupted operation and minimizing downtime. Its adaptability to various environments makes it an ideal choice for businesses seeking efficient asset management processes and enhance operational efficiency.
