As we are rolling into summer, we are delighted to present a 3-part case study, in collaboration with our partner for Cargo Tracking and Supply Chain Transparency, Tive Inc. Each article will highlight a different industry, its unique challenges, and feature real-life stories from Tive’s customers, who have benefited from using the Tive tracking solutions. Perishables and food shipments will be the focus of this article.
Tive Inc. was established in 2015. The company's story began with trying to find a solution for the businesses that required real-time visibility into their shipments in transit. Many of them suffered from low efficiency as employees had to spend hours on the phone tracking the whereabouts of the cargo. As a solution, Tive develops proprietary sensors and software that deliver real-time data and alerts to help logistics professionals manage their shipments and eliminate delays and damages.
Today, Tive is headquartered in the USA and has offices in Germany, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Spain, the UK, Kosovo, Australia, South Africa, and the CIS region.
“Where is my cargo”
As a result of the Covid- 19 pandemic, the number one question that logistics companies hear from their clients is, "Where is my cargo?". Today, it is becoming the industry norm for clients to demand the real-time location of their shipments. As a result, they prefer companies who have instant data sharing capabilities. This process has pushed logistics companies to adopt new technologies and implement new software infrastructures.
Optimizing your supply chain and logistics visibility has never been easier thanks to our partner, Tive Inc. In addition to hyper-accurate location pinpointing, Tive can also provide information with regards to shipment conditions such as temperature, light, shock and more. This is particularly useful for cargo that is temperature sensitive and of high value.
The food and perishables industry are classic examples where Tive’s services can make a huge difference. According to an article on Food Logistics, today's perishables and food market is characterized by three trends: Predictability, Hybrid Routing, and AI. In particular, predictability and timeliness of supply are key performance indicators when grocery stores evaluate their suppliers. A study by Deloitte Insights at the end of 2019 found that 60% of customers spent up to one-third of their grocery budget on fresh food. Damaged products or those that don’t make it on time, often have to be thrown away as spoiled or soon-to-expire goods. This results not only in financial losses for the client but is also not ideal from the perspective of sustainability. A solution is therefore necessary to both prevent such losses, and identify where the problem occurred so that it can be avoided the next time. In the two case studies that follow, we will have a look at how Tive has stepped up to the challenge.
Alpine Fresh Goes Solo 5G with Tive
Alpine Fresh, a grower, packer, and shipper of fresh fruits and vegetables, has a strong partnership with Tive Inc. Alpine Fresh's vision is to bridge the gap between themselves, the growers of fresh fruit and vegetables in Latin America, and the consumers in the United States. However, a significant problem that they experienced was losing a great deal of money due to spoiled products and truck claims.
With only limited staff working on the transportation team, they could not possibly contact all trucks on the road daily to get updates, especially as the company now has operations in six countries on five continents. While a tracking device would help the situation, most products on the market ran on lithium batteries, which are highly inflammable and could pose significant health and environmental risks. Hence one of Alpine Fresh’s most prominent customers banned the usage of lithium-powered data loggers. On top of that, merely tracking the location was only half the solution, to pinpoint the root causes of spoiled products, they needed access to data that showed temperature excursions, excessive humidity or light, and impact/shock events.
Tive’s Solo 5G tracker, the world’s first non-lithium trackers proved to be the perfect solution. This innovative tracker captures and transmits hyper-accurate location, temperature, humidity, shock, and light exposure. On top of that, it took less than two weeks for the Alpine Fresh team to get up and running on Tive’s platform. The results were immediate. The Tive Live monitoring team identified and successfully mitigated a temperature excursion on a $120,000 blueberry shipment bound for New Jersey. They also saved a $90,000 shipment of asparagus headed to Miami when the 5G Solo tracker detected temperature fluctuations while in transit caused by incorrect reefer settings. The time spent by the Transportation team to monitor shipments for deviation significantly reduced, and communication between all parties was enhanced.
Now, all of Alpine Fresh's trucks in the US are equipped with Tive trackers, and they have also begun using them on containers in Peru.
BOA Logistics Stays Cool
BOA Logistics provides consolidation and fulfillment services for major grocers and brands such as Trader Joe’s, Kroger, Costco and Safeway in the USA. They transport a wide variety of perishable produce, such as meats, dairy products, and frozen items, which must be kept between 33 and 38 degrees Fahrenheit for the entire shipment. As receivers will accept only a very small range of temperature fluctuation, inability to maintain the correct temperatures may lead to the rejection of shipments.
To ensure that their shipments arrived at the destination on time and in good condition, the BOA team decided to trial the Tive sensors as a backup system for Logica, BOA’s sister company, on its trailers. Deployment was easy as Tive was already integrated with their 3PL systems TMS.
In this particular use case, Tive’s platform allows easy viewing of data such as refrigerated unit temperature and humidity, shipment location origin, truck delays or long breaks, on-site delivery time, cross-referenced weather, temperature and GPS data for rerouting decisions, light sensory data showing when trailer doors were opened, and truck acceleration and speed. According to BOA’s logistics specialist Vincent Rivalt, what made Tive really stand out, was also their great customer service.
The shipment of perishable and food products comes with many unique challenges, with loss prevention being a pressing concern. The solution starts with shipment condition visibility, being able to capture the right data, correctly process and act upon them. As such, Tive is your best partner along this journey.
To learn more about their products and services, click here:
Reference:
https://www.tive.com/customer-stories/alpine-fresh
https://www.tive.com/customer-stories/boa-logistics
https://www.tive.com/blog/the-best-way-to-ship-perishables-must-include-real-time-tracking
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