Tracking for Telecom

Logistics Insight Asia, 1/1/2008

By having access to real-time location data, British Telecom is now able to better utilize its existing fleet of transportation assets, and recover equipment that might otherwise be lost.

The supply chain unit of BT (British Telecom) provides logistics services for 30,000 engineers, delivering critical parts across the UK. The company transports its parts in expensive, ruggedized transport containers called stillages. These containers were often left unreturned and sometimes disappeared during transport between the company’s distribution centers and depots. In addition to missing containers, BT also had difficulty retrieving the empty drums used to transport cable to engineers, some of which cost upwards of £150 (US$75 ) each. Once empty, the drums were often left on site or disposed of locally, makingthem difficult to recover.

BT lost a significant amount of money each year because of missing or delayed containers. The company really needed a way to compress the lag time for the distribution and return of its transportationassets.

The BT supply chain team looked to its long-term supply chain software provider RedPrairie and its RFID partner, RadiantWave, to deliver a real-time asset tracking solution. In order to justify the cost of the project, BT needed a quick turnaround and proven ROI within the first year.

Arrival & Departure
BT and RadiantWave set up the RFID network, using active RFID equipment from Wavetrend, to work with the company’s existing logistics infrastructure, including its eight major transport depots in the UK.

Each of BT’s transport depots has been fitted with RFID readers that monitor tagged items as they arrive and depart the depots. Stillages, pallet bins, cable drums and transport vehicles all carry active RFID tags that send a signal to the readers when they enter or leave the depots, providing BT with complete visibility of its containers within the supply chain.

The system automatically issues alerts when tagged items leave a depot on a vehicle and when they are returned to their home depot or another location. Logistics managers are also alerted when an asset has not been returned in a timely fashion, if a container has remained in one location for too long (meaning it might have been left behind), or if an asset is loaded onto the wrong vehicle.

Real Results
By having access to real-time location data, BT is now able to better utilize its existing -fleet of transportation assets, and recover stillages and cable drums that might otherwise be lost. This has saved the company a substantial amount of money by reducing asset replacement costs, and has provided automatic tracking of all deliveries. In fact, after the project went live in November 2006, three months was all it took to recoup the investment.

A summary of benefits:
• Reduction in the cost of replacing losttransport assets
• Better asset utilization and planning
• Provides visibility to BT supply chainpartners
• Ensures right containers are on the rightvehicles
• Automatic tracking of all deliveries

“We needed to build a 21st century network to distribute 21st century products and services. RFID was a technology we had been flirting with for two or three years without a viable business case for deployment, but it quickly became the preferred solution to our stillage tracking issues – helping us save valuable time and money by ensuring equipment was in the right place at the right time there via the right route,” said John Bamber, Head of Supply Chain Transformation, BT.

Based on information fromWavetrend (www.wavetrend.com)