IOT in Logistics – The Trends, The Methods and the Means

The internet is now a given. It’s something that we don’t even consider. It’s always there and we can depend on it to help us just as we can depend on electricity and natural gas to keep us warm or cool.

The way in which we use the internet began as communications and has evolved far beyond that to something that is a necessity and something that is changing lives. We are entering a very unique period in the life of the internet.

IoT is isn’t at all new to us though many people are not sure what IoT is and how it’s useful to humanity. It began at MIT and started nearly 20 years ago, in the early part of 2000s. IoT, to simplify the explanation, is nothing more than a network that is designed of all kinds of objects that connect to the internet. Refrigerators, cars, trucks, manufacturing computers, watches, tablets, are all examples of the IoT and each of them has unique capabilities.

Given the changes being made in IoT, this network can now be expanded to include physical items that may not traditionally have been part of the internet. Things like sneakers that count how far you’ve run or cushion your foot and measure the impact to the body. Street lights connected to the internet can record those who stand beneath them or activity that took place.

Iot, according to companies such as DHL and Cisco, is firing the imagination and creating a broad and diverse array of new jobs and new methods of accomplishing old tasks.

IoT offers us a transition in technology that has been impacting many different industries. IT will continue to do so along the way, impacting more tasks and more companies. It will, as it continues to change and evolve—offer huge implications for the movement of goods and services and the business of logistics.

Today some 15 million devices are connected to the internet. These embed sensors, control computers, help us to analyze our work, to source new data, and to find unparalleled views into operations and information that allow us to improve the speed, improve the products, improve the delivery and improve the overall service to our customers.

The IoT is already changing the way that we do business and the logistics of storage and delivery. It’s doing that by changing how we are making decisions about how goods are trucked, “stored, monitored, serviced, and delivered to customers.”

Trucks and cars carrying goods are already moving by the use of robotics in countries such as Singapore, the UK and the US.

Units for storage are carefully measuring temperature to ensure that goods are stored in the right way to prevent spoilage and saving money for the companies which are using them.

Vast changes and major impacts in how we buy, sell and use goods and services and improvements in the ways that they serve mankind are being wrought by the internet of things every day. Expect the future to be more of the same.

For more information check out our website at www.internetofthingsrecruiting.com