Parcel tracking goes visual

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Tracking goods is a central part of the service provided by freight transporters – customers like to know where their goods are, and that they have been loaded onto the truck for delivery. Using smart camera technology, the goods tracking process is now improved – something Le Havre Groupage found out when they had a tracking solution installed recently by French installer Fabrice Juvien.

Challenge

Le Havre Groupage is a French haulage company transporting goods all over France and beyond. The company has a warehouse facility of 12,000m2 near Le Havre in France. They needed to upgrade their process of tracking the goods through their warehouse, and turned to Juvien to install a technology solution. This, perhaps surprisingly, came in the form of surveillance cameras.

Before the new solution was installed, they relied on scanning technology alone to locate packages in the process. This did not give them the evidence they needed throughout the journey of a container through the warehouse and onto the trucks.

The company transports around 8000 to 8500 parcels per year. Although there has never been a loss of packages, they have had incidents of customers querying whether the package was in a certain container. This meant they needed a way to settle disputes on this, with a way to track the parcels when they come into the warehouse and when they go out again.

Solution

The solution saw Hikvision technology used in an innovative way. Cameras were placed on the front and back of each forklift, and a mobile NVR in each vehicle. These capture the images of each container as they are loaded on and off the truck - using the tracking number to identify it. The fleet of vehicles totals 24, so this meant 24 Mobile Wi-Fi enabled NVRs (DS-M5504HNI) and 48 Mobile Network cameras (DS-2X6622FWDI).

This data is transmitted by Wi-Fi from the forklift to the SAN server, which can store the images for future use. The system is managed through Hikvision’s iVMS 5200 software, which allows users to search the database of images, in case they need to find, or track, a specific tracking number.

The SAN server also makes it possible for a recording to be created, even if the Wi-Fi signal is cut off. It will resume the recording from the place where it was interrupted.

The new solution means that customer queries can be answered with visual information. They can actually see their package go into the truck from camera footage.

Juvien says: “Operators can now easily track goods and products, by simply viewing the film record. We chose a Hikvision solution based on three criteria: the quality of the products, the innovation they represent, and the competitive price.”

A Hikvision solution streamlined the transportation process, meaning Le Havre Groupage could better serve its customers with more accurate tracking information. The future is also bright – the company is planning to upgrade the software at the center of the solution to HikCentral soon. This is another good example of a technology originally designed for security being repurposed to provide a very different business benefit.