Austrian Post connects 50,000+ roll containers and swap bodies with Heliot Europe on the 0G Network to digitalise logistics processes
Challenges
Austrian Post needed a solution to remotely monitor the locations of its roll container fleet to reduce costs and asset losses and improve logistics process efficiency.
Solution
Partnering with Heliot Europe, Austrian Post installed IoT-enabled asset tracking devices on over 50,000 roll containers and 1,000 swap bodies, connected to the 0G Network, to track asset locations in near real-time.
Results
Heliot Europe’s IoT-enabled track-and-trace solution delivers Austrian Post data-driven insights to:
- Gain near real-time, international visibility to
logistics asset locations - Reduce lost and underutilised assets
- Save cost by minimising asset replacements
- Improve process efficiency
- Optimise transport routes
- Enhance customer and employee experiences
0G Network Operator & Solution Partner
Heliot Europe is a leading solution provider of technology-agnostic sensor technology and consulting, network, and cloud connectivity services that enable businesses to digitalise processes, improve operational efficiency, and save costs with IoT data.
Customer
Austrian Post is Austria’s leading logistics and postal services provider. Its main business activities include shipping and delivering parcels, letter mail, advertising mail and print publications.
Every day, several million letters, parcels, and direct mail items pass through Austrian Post’s six letter and nine parcel logistics centres. Every minute, lorries filled with shipments arrive at loading ramps for sorting and preparation for onward transport. Efficient processes are critical to mail items reach recipients as quickly as possible. The company uses special roll containers of different types and sizes to transport items within and between its logistics centres and 1,700 branch offices.
Roll containers are vital to the speed and effectiveness of our logistics processes. Every location must have sufficient numbers of the different types of containers available at all times to efficiently process and transport consignments for our customers.In the past, we stored large numbers of containers to supply our centres and buffer against shortages from seasonal fluctuations, such as Christmas. With each container costing an average of EUR600, the business experienced additional costs in the million Euro range annually.
Heliot’s solution allows us to organise the distribution of our assets and minimise transport routes much more effectively. Improved asset location transparency lets us plan logistics better, considerably reduce our buffer of containers and swap bodies, decrease asset losses, and lower employee stress. The IoT and the 0G Network helped improve process efficiency, significantly reduce procurement costs, and increase asset service life.
Franz Leitner, Managing Director of Logistics Centres and Transport at Austrian Post
Optimising logistics processes demands reliable visibility into asset locations
Historically, the Austrian Post team manually managed roll container distribution across logistics centres. When a centre had too few, or the wrong type of, containers to manage its daily consignments, the team will then contact other centres for supplies. The process was time-consuming, error-prone, stressful for employees, added time to customer deliveries, and triggered investment in additional containers.
The Austrian Post’s leadership team realised that improved transparency into asset location data was essential to optimise container supplies at all centres, improve logistics process efficiency, and reduce capital expenditure on backup containers. Post’s Internet of Things Competence Centre (IoT CC) partnered with Heliot Europe to develop an asset track-and-trace solution. Heliot is a leading European provider of IoT connectivity solutions and the exclusive operator of the 0G Network, Sigfox technology. The 0G Network is a global low-power, long-range network enabling low-cost, low-energy device connectivity for Massive IoT.
On-demand container insights transform logistics at Austrian Post
Together, the IoT CC and Heliot developed and installed an IoT-enabled asset track-and-trace solution to remotely monitor Austrian Post’s container locations.
An analysis tool aggregates the IoT data received from the roll container fleet, making it available to Austrian Post’s team via a visual dashboard and email alerts. Logistics teams have on-demand insight into how many containers are available, how many are required to process each centre’s shipments, and which other centres have containers available.
We equipped 50,000 roll containers with Heliot IoT-enabled location tracking devices. Each device contains a digital fingerprint documenting the type and size of roll container. Based on its movement, on average twice per day, the devices transmit the container’s digital fingerprint, timestamp, and location coordinates, accurate to within a few metres, over the 0G Network to a central data platform. Today, we have a good understanding of where each container is and how long it has been at that location.Lukas Alber, Data Engineer, IoT CC at Austrian Post
Thanks to low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) technology, the IoT devices on Austrian Post’s containers are powered by long-life batteries, reliably transmitting data information for up to five years with minimal or no maintenance. Heliot’s 0G Network is mature, available, and reliable. It is covering 100% of Austrian Post’s logistics- and distribution centers and the majority of the 1,700 branches and more than 240 delivery bases nationwide. It allows us to easily track local and international consignments without WiFi or dedicated hardware, even in remote and difficult-to-reach locations, such as steel-reinforced and concrete warehouses. Secure, low-cost, and readily scalable from 10 to tens of thousands of devices, the 0G Network’s low-power wide-area network technology ensures IoT devices on each container operate with long-life batteries, transmitting data for up to 5 years with minimal or no maintenance.Martin Liboswar, Country Manager at Heliot
Heliot and the 0G Network help Austrian Post reduce costs and improve process efficiency
Heliot also designed a plug-and-play solution for employees to install and connect, delivering excellent network coverage in minutes for those Austrian Post branch offices with weaker connectivity.
The Sigfox 0G network is available nationwide across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, with virtually seamless coverage in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Croatia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the Baltic states.
Austrian Post has used Heliot’s IoT-enabled asset tracking solution for two years. Monthly, additional roll containers are fitted with IoT tracking devices and the Post also uses Heliot’s tracking solution to remotely monitor half of its fleet of c.a. 2,400 swap bodies used for road and rail transport.
Austrian Post has joined leading logistics and postal service providers in Germany, Croatia, Ireland, Greece, and Australia in adopting track-and-trace solutions to drive positive commercial outcomes. The powerful insights unlocked by small bytes of information collected at scale are translated to significant operational benefits for the Austrian Post, including enhanced operational efficiency, reduced costs, mitigation of risks, and improved customer experiences. This partnership exemplifies how IoT solutions can transform traditional processes, laying a robust foundation for future digital growth. For courier and postal companies, the question is no longer whether to implement these solutions, but how quickly they can start.David Royet, VP Global Sales & Partnerships at UnaBiz
