Container 4.0- Smart Transport on High Seas

Global supply chains rely on shipping containers to deliver supplies to manufacturers and finished products to distributors and consumers all around the world. Smart containers are attracting more and more interest because of the significant wealth of data they can give. Across the world, a third of all food is damaged before it ever reaches the consumer. As per the food and agriculture organization of the United Nations, that amounts to 1.3 billion metric tons.

The important proportion of this is due to a loss in quality of the goods during transportation. In developing countries, as much as 40 % of food spoils while it is being transported.

There are different aspects for this like variable harvesting conditions, the time from harvest to cooling or local temperature deviations in refrigerated containers or on vehicles. These can all compromise with the quality of fresh food.

The important the concept is that additional monitoring of the quality of goods does not only allow these issues to be solved it also opens up new possibilities for transportation management and storage. Combining such ideas into logistical processes is the main goal of an association made up of 22 partners from industry and research and financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

The task is to make shipping containers smart, which in turn joins on developing and field-testing suitable sensor technologies. To initiate remote access to the container, we had to optimize what had previously been limited communication from the container back to land.

Until this point, communication had been possible only with the help of 3G when the container was on the truck or by satellite when the container was out at sea.

This freight supervision unit (FSU) is designed to create an intermediate between an internal sensor network and external communication. At the same time, the FSU gives a platform that can be variably enlarged to evaluate any faults with the goods and the conditions in which they are being transported.

We can remotely upload a software bundle including a customized shelf-life model or decision support tool to counterpart the type of goods involved. The customer now benefits from being capable to react quickly and, if there has been a loss of quality, order new goods in a timely manner.

Previously, customers used to discover they had unusable goods only when the shipment had arrived in port. Logistical processes are thereby becoming less susceptible to error and much more graceful.

Before containers were contoured with sensors, it was common for up to 30 % of goods to be lost. In the smart containers, the rate of loss is only 20 %. The advantages are that the quality of goods is continuously analyzed and thus improved, losses are decreased and an agile logistics process is produced.

Measurements from the wireless sensors were carried out via satellite on a daily basis. The first evaluation of green life, respiration heat and cooling efficiency was calculated after three days. If a correction was required later, the new values were sent immediately – mainly if it arrived that the goods were at any risk.

As soon as a mobile network became available in the domain of the port, the full data could be acquired via a web interface.

By equipping shipping containers with sensors, we can not only be more precise about the location of goods but also we can analyze and estimate the condition they are.

Industry 4.0 is already integrated with continuing digitalization and the joining of Industrial IoT Solutions with modern information and communications technology.

Now, as part of Logistics 4.0, these same factors also open up entirely new opportunities and huge potential in sea transportation along with the complete value chain.

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