Fault Prevention – IOT in Supply Chain Safety & Security
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Internet Of Things, IOT is another new application concept of making things alive. All things around us are static, no life. In the old days, if we say…. I need to talk to my air conditioner to keep the room cool before finishing my soccer game or ask my refrigerator of ‘How much fruit left at home?’ before leaving to supermarket…. people may think that I am crazy; but all above are just one concept of IOT application. However, what IOT is able to offer our supply chain industry nowadays?
Our vice president Dr. Jeff Yeung and Mr. Don Choi from Asian Institute of Supply Chains & Logistics, CUHK met IOT expert Mr. Antony Lai and had a conversation in June in Hong Kong. |
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What is the characteristics of IOT and why it is so important to our development?It’s a simple technology and open platform concept, especially under the trend of…
Therefore, low cost, low energy consumption, long life-cycle and more importantly, ‘no roaming’ required make up the characteristics of IOT. As a result, it is perfect for cross border and multi-vendor / multi-user environment where it serves as the missing piece of supply chain puzzle. |
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Why Hong Kong supply chain industry needs IOT?25 Years ago, *Pro. Peter Drucker described about future business…’We don’t need a bank, we only need banking services’, same as today’s Hong Kong, not only the number of bank’s branches is decreasing and they are getting smaller, but solid manufacturing operations are also lacking. Since Hong Kong is one of the important trade ports in the world, we are selling the infrastructure for legitimate trading activities to power up their business. Therefore IOT is the lubricant for the global trade machine. Just like the power gearbox role in the global trade, secure safe and trust is our core value to global trader. |
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What value can it bring us directly?As our living standard is high, it forces us to focus on high-value market. One of the major exporting trade targets is western economy while importing one is brand owners with high brand value. As a trade port and hub, if our information supply chain platform is behind the trend, it is the same as we have a racing car engine but use bicycle tires! Consequently, enhancing airport, infrastructures and streamline operations are important. Also, as one supply chain industry player, it is required to provide feasible ideas and solutions to meet the high-value trading needs, in which case IOT is an open platform that allows us to develop necessary applications and hardware, e.g. a traceable logging device in the cargo operations for tracing the status in various environment conditions to protect against security or physical harm threats (e.g. cargo tempering, temp vibration etc.) |
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What possible applications can it offer us?
However, Hong Kong is still a connector for some countries to China. Air and ocean are the two main channels for global trade, so we still have our own position. For example, Hong Kong still has the world NO.1 airport for cargo handling, in which around **70% of export trade come from China. In the case, consolidation is our key success and providing a safe, secure and trusting business environment is critical in legitimate trade. Trading via Hong Kong is not just fast and safe for buyers, also, we are determined to enhance our ‘final QC role’ for them in exporting business to provide a better service. Since we do not check features of the goods in every single detail, ‘fault prevention’ remains a worrying topic for those brand owners. Not too long ago (Nov 2017), there is a cargo explosion case in air cargo terminal; in that tragedy, buyer asked; ’whose cargo sat next to mine?’ or for countries of high terrorism risk, they asked’ do the cargo is planned to fly over their sky or land in their country?’
During the 80’s and 90’s, we mainly worked on the yield of consolidation, nowadays, we should rather focus on consolidation quality.
It’s a new era for Hong Kong to re-define quality services in the 21st century which has just started and we are believed to still have energy to run and continue the lead.
Fault Prevention is one new possible approach for us to offer the world for global legitimate supply chain, where IOT surely is one of the applications and partners in this area.
Supply Chain Safety & Security Association now is inviting our members to discuss a pilot project to explore the IOT application in Fault Prevention application, if you are interest, please write to us.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker
** Source: SCSA Cross Border RE-Export study 2014