The modern supply chain is under immense pressure. Organisations today are forced to navigate high volumes, rapid speeds, complex interconnectedness, and tight margins.
Amid this uncertain environment and shifting consumer expectations, supply chain leaders must respond swiftly to market demands and trends.
Enter the ambient Internet of Things (IoT). Ambient IoT represents a new wave of IoT, in many ways achieving what the technology was originally designed for – it’s a pervasive, end-to-end ubiquitous solution that links businesses and the products they’re using, bringing intelligence to everyday things.
Steve Statler, chief marketing officer at Ambient IoT technology company Wiliot, believes the business implications of the technology will be huge.
“Ambient IoT for the first time extends internet connectivity beyond cars and appliances to food, medicine, clothing – things that are important to people, which make a difference in terms of the quality of living, safety and sustainability,” he explains.
What is ambient IoT?
Ambient radio technologies include Wi-Fi, cellular and Bluetooth. The difference is that Ambient IoT technologies are now evolving to talk through these channels to very small computing devices embedded into packaging.
But why is that a game-changer for organisations? Ambient IoT can provide previously unseen levels of visibility into the supply chain through real-time tracking and monitoring of products. And it can do this much more cost-effectively than in the past, too.
In retail, for example, tracking goods previously required pulling an employee from the shop floor or forklift to scan RFID tags with expensive handheld scanners. But ambient IoT pinpoints exactly where the goods are, and the condition they’re in, all without any human interaction.
Ambient IoT helps to minimise waste through better monitoring of environmental conditions on perishable goods, reducing the risks of spoilage
This means processes are faster, tracking is more accurate, and goods are no longer potentially sitting on a loading dock for an hour. This pervasive connectivity means organisations are one step closer to the ‘omniscient supply chain.’
“Today supply chains with conventional technologies – barcodes, RFID tags and IoT sensors – just get snapshots of the supply chain. This is normally when a worker is scanning something, or a product is going through a choke point. But what we’re talking about is turning the lights on and seeing everything, everywhere, all at once,” says Statler.
To that point, Wiliot has developed the IoT Pixels, these low-cost tags can sense temperature, location, light, and humidity, offering significant cost reduction and operational efficiency.
The technology is being adopted by major retailers and logistics companies, improving inventory accuracy, reducing shrinkage, and enhancing product quality.
Enhancing product safety and quality through IoT
With more retailers adopting an omnichannel strategy – customers’ ability to buy online, pick up in-store, or have home delivery – the need for inventory accuracy has never been more critical. But how many people have bought something online and arrived to collect it at the store, and found their order isn’t there, or it’s there, but both the customer and the store associates don’t know where?
For Statler, he contends that traditional supply chain visibility is becoming obsolete in today’s retail landscape.
“Most grocery retailers know that a product has been shipped from a distribution centre, but they operate with a concept of assumed receipt. That level of visibility is not sufficient anymore,” he says. “You need to know exactly where the product is so as not to disappoint customers, but also to better use the hard-to-find workforce and run a more effective operation.”
The road ahead to meet changing market demands
Embracing ambient IoT is essential for supply chain and operations leaders to maintain a competitive edge in today’s dynamic and demanding market. That’s because it helps organisations undertake more accurate demand forecasting and optimises inventory management.
Out-of-stock goods risk missing out on revenue, impacting the customer experience and damaging brand loyalty. As a solution, ambient IoT could be the foundation for better customer experiences through accurate delivery times and rapid issue resolution.
In retail and grocery, ambient IoT helps to minimise waste through better monitoring of environmental conditions on perishable goods, reducing the risks of spoilage and improving overall quality.
The ability to keep track of the temperature of perishables across the entire supply chain is now possible for the first time, allowing retailers to both extend shelf life and improve food safety.
This is also critical for organisations meeting regulatory compliance. Already in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s Food Safety and Modernisation Act Rule 204 (FSMA 204), means suppliers must keep track of a broad range of ‘high risk’ foods.
It requires grocers and restaurants, within 24 hours of a product recall, to provide electronic records that show where they sourced the contaminated product and a lot code which can instantly be used to trace it back to the farm, distributor, or manufacturing facility.
The future of the self-stocking food cupboard
Ambient IoT helps transforms supply chains and operations today, and in future, can help add visibility past the point of sale to enable connected products and true smart home ecosystems.
“Ambient IoT will rearrange the way people buy, use and reuse products. Having connected packaging for home staples will allow auto replenishment, and it will eventually reconfigure the supply chain and the role of retailers,” says Statler.
Statler believes, with ambient IoT, you may never run out of the essentials again. “Take your herbs and spice rack – gone are the days of having three bottles of peppercorns and none of the garlic salt that you just ran out of,” he says.
“Whoever is your preferred provider of herbs and spices will be able to offer a subscription service, replenishing the items you’re running low on. Spice is just one category; you can apply it to pretty much everything. That will be a significant disruption to the grocery business, among many others”.
For more information please visit www.wiliot.com
