GPS Tracking ROI

With annual cargo thefts over $25 billion, your company cannot afford to leave freight unprotected. FreightWatch Group is expert in identifying threats and vulnerabilities to high-value supply and distribution chains. Using compliance monitoring and continuous process improvement methods, plus the latest covert tracking technology, FreightWatch stops cargo theft in its tracks. Read More Here:

One of the newest bloggers on the ‘Net is an online friend of mine, Don Brown. He just launched a new blog called “Get The Flick” and very little of his writings are about GPS. So why am I giving him blog love? because his title is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Don’s along-time Air Traffic Controller and in that profession, to “have the flick” is a frequent controller term, but it’s no less applicable to business. In Don’s words controllers typically refer to folks in being in one of three categories:

• Those that have the flick – aware, in charge or on the ball….
• Those that lost the flick — they’re distracted or overwhelmed…
• The 7UPs — Never had it and never will.

Read more of Don here:

I’ve been active in the GPS and GIS business arena for more then 10 years now. I’ve seen good companies and bad come and go. One thing, sadly, that has been true in almost every cases is that the companies are “7UPs”, when it comes to actually providing a business service rather than trying to outdo themselves “impressing” each other with their cool technology, the great majority of them “never had it, never will”.

GPS technology and, in particular, GPS tracking systems can be fascinating. They can provide a business with so much information and potential expense avoidance or increased profits that it’s mind boggling. And that, dear reader, is the crux of the problem.

Just successfully running a business can be mind boggling. In a highly competitive cut-throat business like logistics it can be even more difficult. No one needs any new technology unless it directly translates to the bottom line … hands off and without a long learning curve.

Well FreightWatch really seems to have thought this through and has it covered. Put a tracer in each of your high-value shipments and _they_ will watch out for theft or mis-direction.

I’m not voting for or against FreightWatch’s technology, I haven’t learned enough yet to give an informed opinion, but I’m already a strong supporter because they, unlike so many, “have the flick”.

Technorati tags: gps, gps tracking, business advanatage, thedt prevention, international security

Here’s an interesting system I just came across and one that is sorely needed.  If you have ever visited a new car dealer who actually knew what was on his lot and could walk you to a specific model, the congratulations.  You dealer was either the 0.001% exception that proves the rule, or he didn’t have many cars to sell.

In most dealers it goes sort of like this:

• Hmmm, so if we have a Belchfire 8 in Teal Egg Blue, we can close the deal,, Mr. Buyer?
• Now let me rummage through our inventory folders here to see what Belchfire’s we have in stock..
• Hmmm, this is last week’s inventory folder, “Agnes, darlin’, when you finish your nails can you find me the current inventory”?
• Ah, here we go, the up to date one, here’s a Teal’s Egg Blue unit in in row 229, let’s take a walk
• Well, here we are at row 229 and there’s no Belchfire 8 here at all … whips out cell phone and dials with a deer in the headlights look on his face
• Finally a lot man drives buy in a golf cart and shouts, “Boss sold that blue unit this morning and then went to lunch …. he’ll update the inventory when he gets around to it”

Anyway, that kind of scenario happens all the time.  In addition to being a sales obstacle, those cars on dealers lots are ‘floor planned’, the dealers actually own them and make payments on them … and they don’t know where the heck they are half the time.  Recipe for business disaster … ever watch the movie “Fargo”?

Here’s a great tool to make that aspect of the car business ever so much better:

MyDealerLotâ„¢ RTLS/RFID Inventory Vehicle Tracking uses
similar technology as the EZPass through a toll booth giving you unprecedented tracking and visibility of your dealer vehicle inventory as it moves, even for test drives. Using the latest Aeroscout WiFi tags and tracking technology, we provide the only total solution that is completely web based and that can work with your existing Dealer Management System (DMS) such as Reynolds & Reynolds, ADP, and UCS.  Full Web Site Here:

Now those who are just learning the ropes in vehicle tracking are going to scratch their heads and ask, “Dave, isn’t this really GPS by another name”?  Well, no it isn’t.  But it does use some of the basic principles behind GPS and other electronic locating systems. 

Each unit on the lot gets a key fob-size RFID tag stuck on the back of the mirror.  The tag immediately gives the dealer’s 802.11 wireless LAN a number (interestingly enough in the trade this number is called a license plate).  The number gets identified once in the dealer’s existing database by Agnes of the shiny nails.

Now the computer ‘knows’ about the Teal Belchfire.  To link to the wireless LAN the radio waves travel back and forth between the RFID tag and a transceiver, commonly called a Wireless Access Point … you might have one near the computer you’re reading this from, I do.

But to cover an area the size of a car dealer’s lot, you would typically need several WAPs, and each one of them can contact the active RFID tag on the car.  But it will take longer for the signal to travel from the farthest WAP than it will from the closest one.  If you plot the travel time of the signal from each WAP you’d draw two circles on a map of the lot.  The circles will cross at two points, the Belchfire is at one of those points.  Use a third WAP and presto, three circles and the Belchfire is at the intersection … electronically plot a symbol on a display of the dealer’s lot and even Agnes can find it.  This is called in the business triangulation or trilateration, actually since there can easily be more than three WAPs involved it should be called multilateration.  Agnes doesn’t need to know the name but she and her bosses should get smart and use it.  What are you doing to control your inventory?

Like anyone who writes a blog or operates a web site in support of a business, I take note of what people search for. The poem below was initially posted last March in response to a cigarette theft, where the stolen $100,000 truck tractors were protected (and recovered) by means of on-board GPS, but the trailers, carrying more than $1,500,000 went missing. very few trucking companies protect their trailers … where the cargo … the whole reason behind trucking .. rides … mainly, because their competitors don’t. Business smarts haven’t improved any since March, I’m sad to say.

There’s a series of commercials popular on TV lately that really chaps my hide whenever I see one. A big name-brand insurance company has a guy going around and spotting hazards like a banana peel on the sidewalk. Does this do-gooder pick up the litter and protect people?

Nope, in true Web 2.0, “touchy feely” fashion he puts a traffic cone down near the banana peel, hoping people will see the cone and thus somehow connect the inconvenient and unexpected cone with the hard to see banana peel and thus avoid slipping on it. I want to scream at the imbecile, “Pick it up, you dolt, do something to completely avoid the hazard instead of some misguided attempt at mitigating it”!

McDonalds has a similar commercial in the past few weeks. A young woman is shot walking down the sidewalk in parallel with herself. In one side of the shot she’s attractive, vibrant, hair deployed like a Suave commercial and a lovely smile on her face.

In the other side of the screen she looks like a woman who just used only TSA-approved makeup after getting off a turbulent Manilla to LAX flight, with a frown, blowzy hair and eyes half open.

In the sidewalk is one of the world’s most dumbshit utility workers, man hole cover slid to one side and a couple dumb orange cones supposedly alerting innocent pedestrians to the hazard.

Well of course in the half-asleep, frumpy personality side of the shot she doesn’t see the cones and falls right into the man hole. In the other side she adroitly sidesteps the hole and smiles even brighter. The moral, at least as McDonalds wants you to envision it, is eat a good breakfast at the golden arches and life will be grand.

Well hello!!! That ain’t the real moral. The real moral is don’t use half-assed measures like orange traffic cones … meaningless cautions from Mom not to take risks … when there are real world dangers out there. It is not (yet) a cushy little bicycle helmet, skater’s knee pas, Web 2.0 world.

Use proven technology, such as GPS tracking to eliminate hazards before people get killed or maimed. Leave the silly orange cones for Ronald to play with.

Once upon a time a poem was written that pretty well sums up where we are today when it comes to safety and crime prevention:

“A Fence or an Ambulance”

by Joseph Malin

Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed.
- Though to walk near its crest was so pleasant,
But over its terrible edge there had slipped,
A Duke and full many a peasant.
The people said something would have to be done.
But the projects did not at all tally.
Some said “Put a fence round the edge of the cliff”.
Some, “An ambulance down in the valley”.

The lament of the crowd was profound and was loud,
As the tears overflowed with their pity,
But the cry for the ambulance carried the day
As it spread through the neighboring city.
A collection was made, to accumulate aid,
and the dwellers in highway and alley.
Gave dollars and cents - not to furnish a fence
But an ambulance down in the valley.

“For the cliff is alright, if you’re careful!”, they said;
“And if folks ever slip and are dropping,
It isn’t the slipping that hurts them so much,
As the shock down below - when they’re stopping”
So for years (we have heard), as these mishaps occurred,
Quick forth would the rescuers sally,
To pick up the victims who fell from the cliff,
with the ambulance down in the valley.

Said one, in a plea, “It’s a marvel to me,
that you all give so much greater attention,
to repairing results than to curing the cause;
You had much better aim at prevention.
For the mischief, of course, should be stopped at its source;
Come, neighbors and friends, let us rally.
It is far better sense, to put up a fence,
than an ambulance down in the valley!”.

“He is wrong in his head!”, the majority said,
“He would end all our earnest endeavor,
He’s a man who would shirk the responsible work
But we will support it forever.
Aren’t we picking up all, just as fast as they fall,
and giving them care liberally?
A superfluous fence, is of no consequence,
if the ambulance works in the valley.”

The story looks queer, as we’ve written it here,
but things oft occur that are stranger,
more humane, we assert, than to succor the hurt,
is the plan of removing the danger.
The best possible course is to safeguard the source
by attending to things rationally.
Yes build up the fence, and let us dispense,
with the ambulance down in the valley…

We have allowed insurance companies in the US to develop tremendous, un-deserved power.

We have virtually eliminated individual responsibility … “What’s the government going to do about the problem”

Do we just want to continue down the same slippery slope, or do we want to act on the principles our country was built on? Do you want a fence at the top, or an ambulance to pick up the pieces at the bottom?