Infotech Lead Europe: Deutsche Telekom has signed a nearly double-digit million euro contract with cargo monitoring service provider arviem of Switzerland to jointly serve their customers.
Under the partnership, the companies will offer customers a real-time monitoring solution for freight consignments. The partnership is crucial to Deutsche Telekom as the company has been looking to expand its business in solutions based on machine-to-machine (M2M) communication.
Deutsche Telekom has agreed to provide the hardware and the SIM cards while arviem will provide the software solution that evaluates the data collected.
In future Deutsche Telekom plans to offer customers a complete, single-source service, software included. Customers can book the solution for a fixed price (OPEX) per consignment. The flexible business model eliminates the need for high investments and makes companies more flexible as well because they can manage individual containers or even individual consignments on demand.
The tracking device incorporates several sensors that are designed to record ambient conditions like temperature, humidity or vibrations and can be attached to the outside of the box as it is not built into the container. The system localizes the container’s position to within 30 meters by GPS and each customer can specify in advance which events he wants to be informed of – for example, whether his container has been opened in transit or is diverted from the predecided route. The M2M solution then relays the data required via the mobile network. This data is then processed by software and is sent to the customer by e-mail or on a Web-based dashboard.
According to a report published by MarketsandMarkets, the total M2M market is estimated to be worth $85.96 billion by 2017 at a CAGR of 26.1 percent from 2012 to 2017. Asia-Pacific has the highest growth rate, mainly due to the growing technology awareness and increasing shortage of human labor for execution of critical tasks.
Out of over 16 million containers globally shipped each day, an average of 30 percent of freight consignments arrives either damaged or late. This makes efficient cargo monitoring crucially important for companies to thrive in the competitive market.
