Signal 4 — Using IoT sensors to improve transporting perishable items
Delay in transporting perishable products is a big problem that addressed by the Department of Transportation. In fact, according to a recent post by Intel, every year there are 30% of perishable products that never make to final destinations. This issue not only causes suppliers to waste a huge amount of food and increases air and land pollution since wasted products need to be disposed but also decrease the efficiency in supplying foods.
Utilizing IoT sensors is a way to improve the situation. One factor that makes those products not be able to supply to demanders is that they go bad before arriving at destinations. With the help of IoT sensors, real-time data like temperature, humidity level and location can be provided for each shipment. In this way, suppliers can control temperature and humidity level of their products while they are being shipped. Moreover, analyzing the data they obtained each time could help them optimizing their shipping system and better preserve their products in long terms. Also, being able to access location of every shipment could reduce delay in shipping by optimizing their routes.
However, as data science just started to enter the supply chain field, it still takes time to initialize this approach. Moreover, the cost is another huge problem as it’s costly to implement these sensors to all shipping conveyance. Also, as sensors might be produced by different companies, the extent of data accuracy and format will be another problem.
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