The future prospects of “Ambient IoT” are now in the hands of a 507-year-old institution.
Royal Mail, which can trace its history as the U.K.’s primary postal service back to the court of King Henry VIII, has partnered with Wiliot, the creator of stamp-sized IoT Pixel stickers for asset tracking and one of the major proponents of Ambient IoT, on a project that could prove to be a massive showcase for the technology’s tracking capabilities and operational efficiency benefits, as well as its sustainability benefits.
Just in time for the busy holiday delivery season, Royal Mail has been tagging about 850,000 wheeled containers of the type that are used to transport mail around logistics centers. Called Yorks, the rolling containers also can be carried on trucks and other vehicles between locations, but Royal Mail has faced a challenge obtaining accurate information about where all of its Yorks are at any given time.
Wiliot’s sticker-like tags are the heart of the seven-year-old company’s “sensing-as-a-service” offering, which leverages Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity to automatically detect and monitor the stickers and transmit a variety of data about their location and environmental conditions, such as temperature and humidity, to the Wiliot Cloud. That automated capability is what puts the “ambient” in Ambient IoT. It eliminates the need for human workers with RFID scanners to manually scan RFID-tagged items nearly every time they change location, and enables real-time monitoring.
In Royal Mail’s case, the IoT Pixels allow the company to track the Yorks–and the parcels aboard them–as they travel between 37 mail centers, two automated parcel hubs and 1,200 delivery offices, via a vast network of vehicles. The tags essentially create a live digital map of their journeys. While the IoT Pixels are only on the Yorks so far, they eventually will be placed on individual packages.
Wiliot CMO Steve Statler told Fierce Electronics, “The same readers in the trucks that read tags on Yorks will read the packages, but the cloud systems to link with the tags on packages is work in progress.”
The data collected from the IoT Pixels will help Royal Mail optimize its delivery network, and specific aspects, such as fuel consumption and carbon dioxide-equivalent metrics.
Nathan Preston, Tech Director for Strategy, Innovation & Data at Royal Mail, said, “Data-led modernization is an important part of our strategy to improve the effectiveness of our operation, and make it as efficient and customer focussed as possible. We are excited to be the first postal company in the world to be using Wiliot’s innovative technology..”
Preston added, “It has huge potential, from increasing reliability by allowing us to quickly spot and address any issues in the network, to reducing our carbon footprint by helping us to better fill our vehicles to avoid wasted journeys. Combining Wiliot data with other sources, we can more efficiently monitor the items in our network, without the need for any additional manual scanning.”
Royal Mail becoming Wiliot’s first postal sector customer also is a major step forward for Wiliot, as the company has been talking to potential postal clients since its 2017 founding.
“The significance of this project is profound,” Statler told Fierce Electronics. “Royal Mail connects with every business and household in the U.K., and has established a blueprint for its counterparts around the globe… Having a template for success is of great value. Ambient IoT can be used in thousands of ways, so seeing a proven approach is very helpful for these organizations who have traditionally been challenged by younger 3PLs [third-party logistics firms]. In this case, the established delivery service is ahead.”
Statler said Royal Mail evaluated other technologies before eventually choosing Wiliot’s approach. Royal Mail evaluated alternatives such as RFID and battery-free Bluetooth, but Wiliot’s ambient IoT solution won the business based on having lower capex cost as well as a process that required less reliance (none) on manual scanning.” The project started with a small number of trucks being equipped with Bluetooth readers and tested for the extremes of handling and changing warm and cold environmental conditions.
“The vision and potential of adding ambient intelligence to supply chains is far reaching, adding visibility and transparency to the supply chain in new ways that have the potential to spread upstream,” Statler said.
It also fits with Royal Mail’s aim to have a “net zero” carbon footprint by 2040. Statler added. “The long term sustainability, economic, and customer experience benefits are transformative. All this is anchored by an immediate set of benefits that enable the process to be sustainable from an economic, and service quality perspective, right from the start.”