Digitally monitoring the shipment of returnable containers, cylinders, and totes with asset tracking software helps businesses enjoy significant efficiency gains and cost savings. Yet comparatively few have considered the benefits of tracking the actual pallets or cages that transport those assets.
Pallets tend to be seen as far less important or valuable than the containers they carry from place to place. Rather than being tracked, maintained, and put back into circulation for reuse, they’re instead neglected, mislaid, or scrapped. Not only is it an unnecessary expense for any business, but it’s also damaging to the environment.
Make no mistake, pallets play an important role in the supply chain. They make it easier to ship bulk goods and offer an extra layer of protection – ensuring product reaches the customer safely, securely, and in optimal condition.
TrackAbout’s Palletization Module treats a pallet just as any other valued asset. Users can monitor and manage its movement, know what it’s carrying, who’s handled it along the way, and how long it’s been sitting idle and unused. That means better ROI and the ability to make more informed strategic decisions.
Pallets come in all shapes and sizes. The gas industry, for example, relies on metal-sided steel cages to move gas cylinders, and these can easily cost $1,000-2,000 to replace – which makes them well worth protecting. On the other hand, it can be a little harder for companies to justify spending the time, effort, and money tracking lower-cost options such as conventional wooden pallets, which are routinely recycled or disposed of.
Yet consider the bigger picture. Although discarding a few of these wooden pallets will likely make little difference to your bottom line, extrapolate that to an entire warehouse or multiple locations and replenishing these stocks could significantly impact your finances.
That’s why our Palletization Module is quickly becoming one of our most popular add-ons. No matter the type of asset, TrackAbout makes tracking simple and cost effective.
Pallet Scanning Systems are an effective way for companies to monitor and manage multiple assets at once, without needing to scan them all individually.
By grouping containers or returnable containers and assigning them to a pallet or cage, scanning a single barcode will accurately capture the movement of all the assets at once. It saves tons of time and completely eliminates the risk of injury from climbing around assets on pallets, having to maneuver items, or offload them entirely.
Here are some additional reasons why tracking your pallets makes good business sense:
Become more sustainable and improve utilization. The circular economy has become a key pillar of companies’ corporate strategies, and asset tracking software enables users to become greener and operate far more efficiently by maximizing the use of their assets. Why waste money replacing them when tracking the pallets means they can easily be reallocated and properly maintained to extend their lifespan? TrackAbout treats a pallet just like any cylinder or container: a simple scan and the system records essential data about the contents, whereabouts, and customer.
Increase your productivity. Assigning multiple assets to a labeled pallet means users only ever need to scan a single barcode for the system to capture the details of all those containers, saving significant time and effort. Scanning a delivery of several hundred containers individually would take quite some time. However, with 12-15 containers assigned to each scannable pallet, this will save considerable effort when checking inventories. Specific pallets can also easily be assigned to a customer or branch, providing much more control and making management easier. When loading a truck, a distributor relying on manual scanning rather than TrackAbout’s Palletization Module could easily take ten times as long to account for all those assets.
Improve safety. As mentioned above, with our Palletization Module, scanning a pallet’s barcode removes the need to unload all the containers first and scan them individually. It also allows product to be assigned to specific pallets and will warn users if there are any discrepancies when they are loaded or unloaded. For example, if a pallet has been designated as carrying oxygen cylinders, the system will alert the user should someone inadvertently attempt to add a non-oxygen cylinder to that pallet, preventing a potentially dangerous situation. It can also catch whether cylinders are past their retest date, preventing them being refilled and sent out.
Recoup rental fees. Many TrackAbout customers charge rent on the pallets themselves, so being able to track them accurately helps make the process far easier and more manageable.
Status monitoring. If a delivery person removes a couple of containers from a fully-loaded tracked pallet, the software calculates the balance. By providing a running total of the pallet’s contents all the way through to final delivery, fewer discrepancies or mistakes occur.
Various technologies can be used for pallet tracking, including radio frequency identification (RFID), barcode labels, and QR codes. A lot depends on your requirements – product, company size, industry, and surroundings.
RFID is commonly used in retail, for example, with clothing or food & beverage items. Using electromagnetic fields, these wireless tags send radio waves to transmit data. A more expensive option compared with conventional barcoding, RFID allows large quantities of similar product to be quickly identified as it passes in close proximity to a scanner, often through some sort of portal.
However, RFID may not be the best choice when used with gas cylinders in industrial settings. Interference caused by the metal body of the containers makes the tags difficult to read and requires users to insulate the tag from the cylinder itself. Instead, barcoding or QR codes are far more commonly used for these types of applications. They’re cheaper and easier to set up too. Simply apply a barcode sticker to assets and scan. All you need is an Android device or iPhone with the app installed.
Tracking returnable assets boosts efficiency and productivity, improves inventory management, prevents thefts and losses, and means you can easily monitor maintenance and repairs. By building a complete record of an asset’s movement, it not only ensures transparency and compliance but also keeps customers informed at every stage of the process.
By scanning a unique barcode assigned to each asset at every step of its journey, users can quickly create a detailed and accurate record of its movement and status. Tracking returnable assets with a reliable software solution is cost-effective, efficient, and eliminates errors—ultimately saving significant time and money.
Our cloud-based solution puts all the information you need at your fingertips. A quick scan uploads and syncs key data including serial number, product code, manufacturer, ownership details, purchase/in-use date, last/next test date, and more.
If you'd like to learn more about how effectively managing returnable assets can help improve business efficiency, boost productivity, and increase profitability, reach out to our sales team today at sales@trackabout.com.