Cathay Cargo use New Technology to Transport Giant Panda

Cathay Cargo, a global provider of air freight services, successfully utilized Descartes Systems Group’s Bluetooth® Low Energy air cargo tracking solution for real-time monitoring of the condition and location of Giant Pandas An An and Ke Ke during their safe journey from Chengdu, China to Hong Kong. The pandas arrived at Hong Kong International Airport on September 26, 2024. Descartes, the global leader in uniting logistics-intensive businesses in commerce, provided the technology that ensured the animals’ well-being throughout the transport.

“We’re excited that our technology played a role in the safe arrival of such a special shipment from Chengdu to Hong Kong,” said Frank Hung, VP Sales and Marketing at Descartes. “With our advanced IoT-based tracking capabilities, our customers are not only able to monitor the location of their shipments in real-time, but also shipment conditions such as temperature, light, vibration and humidity—which takes on an even more important dimension for Cathay Cargo in this unique situation.”

Cathay Cargo has used the Descartes solution as part of its Ultra Track cargo tracking service since 2021. The solution helps the air cargo carrier provide customers with real-time shipment location and condition status for airport-to-airport moves of high value goods such as electronics, perishables and pharmaceuticals. The Ultra Track service is available in 29 airports across Cathay Cargo’s network.

The Descartes air cargo tracking solution is designed to help airlines and ground handling agents (GHA) provide forwarding and shipper customers with end-to-end shipment visibility. Descartes Bluetooth® Low Energy powered tags placed on Unit Load Devices (ULD) or pallets provide location and condition status data that is captured by Descartes Bluetooth® Low Energy readers. Readers are part of the Descartes global Internet of Things (IoT) network and a Descartes Global Logistics Network™ service. Shipment status can be tracked whether goods are in the air or on the ground to help the air cargo community automate the end-to-end tracking of freight location and shipment status information such as precise temperature, movement, shock, light and humidity.

“We’re pleased to have supported Cathay Cargo in this extraordinary endeavor,” said Scott Sangster, General Manager, Logistics Service Providers at Descartes. “Customers with temperature-controlled, time-sensitive and other specialized cargo expect to be kept informed of the location, condition, and chain of custody of their air shipment throughout its journey. By building out our IoT network in more geographies, deploying active readers across more locations and expanding the reach of the network, we’re helping the air cargo industry meet requirements for real-time, multi-dimensional cargo visibility and facilitate more secure, efficient, and responsive logistics operations.”

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Enterprise-Grade Asset Tag Provides Increased Visibility

Samsara Inc. has announced the industry’s first enterprise-grade Asset Tag designed to meet customer demand for tracking and managing small, high-value assets. This new device leverages the Samsara Network to offer increased visibility into the location of mission-critical equipment and tools. As a result, organizations can minimize downtime spent searching for lost or stolen items, reduce associated costs, and simplify inventory management.

The industries that power our global economy – like transportation, oil and gas, and construction – have complex operations that rely on specialized assets to get their work done each day. These assets include toolboxes, jackhammers, chemical totes, and more. Due to manual inventory processes and a lack of connected systems, the recurring loss or theft of these materials can cost organizations millions of dollars every year.

But as sensors get more compact, sophisticated, and easier to install, they can track anything – big or small. Samsara’s Asset Tag (pictured below) was built around this opportunity: to provide unprecedented access and visibility into valuable assets at scale. By connecting critical assets to the cloud for the first time, customers can now easily capture and analyze location insights to significantly improve operational efficiency.

The Pike Corporation is a leading provider of infrastructure solutions for electric and gas utility companies within the United States. Pike uses the Samsara platform across Vehicle Telematics, Video-Based Safety, and Asset Tracking to connect their operations. Most recently, Pike has begun testing Samsara’s Asset Tag to help recover misplaced or lost tools and equipment and accurately track safety PPE to comply with annual OSHA testing requirements.

“We have several high-value assets like service gloves and electrical grounds that don’t have serial numbers, but still need to be tracked, managed, and inspected to remain compliant,” said James Banner, Senior Vice President of Administration at Pike Electric. “Previously misplaced equipment would take us weeks to locate and if lost entirely, cost up to a million dollars to replace annually. With Samsara’s Asset Tags, we are hoping to minimize this downtime, cut costs, and digitize manual inspection processes – all while keeping our employees safe and efficient. We’re just getting started with this technology and I look forward to seeing what else it can do.”

With the Samsara Asset Tag, organizations can expect to:
● Prevent loss and recover stolen assets: with advanced location tracking technology powered by Samsara’s vast network of gateways.
● Reduce downtime and boost productivity: by sharing asset locations with technicians in the field via the Samsara Driver App and avoid service disruptions with Inventory Filtering, which pulls a summary of assets and applies filters to identify which tools are in close proximity.
● Better manage inventory: and increase operational efficiency with a consolidated dashboard and easy-to-use reporting.

Powerful location tracking capabilities within the Asset Tag are enabled by the Samsara Network, made up of millions of IoT devices worldwide. This network coverage powered by Samsara devices leverages industrial-grade BLE technology and offers enterprise reliability designed to withstand the ruggedized, complex environments of physical operations.

“About a year ago, the Asset Tag was born from a radical idea that we could use the millions of Samsara Gateways we have out in the field to create a network, enabling ‘tags’ to ping off those devices. With this, we’d unlock a level of asset tracking that was previously impossible and solve even more real-world problems for our customers,” explained David Gal, Vice President, Product and Engineering at Samsara. “After months of rigorous testing and customer feedback, I’m excited to see this vision become a reality. As we further connect every aspect of physical operations, we can turn massive amounts of data into valuable insights and drive real results.”

Asset Tag is shipping now to customers across North America and Europe.

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