Yard management is in the PINC

Innovation, what I like to think of as the gee whiz factor, is one of the reasons I like to write about automation and technology. Walking the aisles at ProMat or visiting an automated distribution center, I’m always a little awe struck at the dozens of ways there are to skin the same cat and move product through a facility.

It’s also one of the reasons I’m drawn to RFID. The industry continues to come up with interesting new ways to employ the technology to solve problems that already seemed solved.

Take yard management. The way most systems solve the problem is to put an active RFID tag on a trailer. Once the trailer is parked, the tag constantly sends out a signal that is read by readers installed throughout the yard. But the other day, I spoke to Michelle Meng-Hsiung Kiang, the founder and vice president of marketing of PINC Solutions, a supplier of real time yard management systems that has a different way of solving the problem.

PINC combines passive RFID tags with GPS technology and sensors to track the location of trailers. Passive technology is used because it’s cheaper than active technology: If a trailer leaves the yard with the active tag still in place, you might be losing a $40 or $50 tag – or more. Because they don’t have a battery, passive tags are a fraction of that cost. What’s more active technology requires the installation of its own infrastructure and communication network; passive technology can work with an existing WiFi network. So, while an active tag is constantly broadcasting its location, a passive tag in the PINC solution is little more than an identifier waiting to be read.

How then does the system know where a trailer is parked? That’s the innovative piece. PINC installs a GPS-enabled reader on the yard dog – the tractor that shuttles trailers around the yard. When the yard dog moves a trailer, the reader identifies the trailer and the GPS system associates the tag with a location in the system. The advantage: Instead of installing many readers across the expanse of a yard, you only have to install readers on a few yard dogs.

But what happens if someone without a reader moves a trailer? Not to worry. Whenever a reader-enabled yard dog travels through an area, it’s reading any tags in range and updating the system.

PINC has added one other innovation: In addition to a traditional license, it’s software solution is offered in a Software as a Service model over the Internet that can be subscribed to on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis.

Along with learning how the system works, what I really wanted to know from Meng-Hsiung Kiang is what drew her to a space that has a number of players. “We started about five years ago,” she said. “What we saw was a number of companies that had a niche. There were traditional WMS and TMS companies that created an add-on software solution for the yard. And, there were RFID companies that were teaming up with software companies to provide real-time locating capability. We saw an underserved market and an opportunity to create a lower cost system that could address a broad market.”

I think that kind of innovation – seeing an opportunity in what might otherwise seem an entrenched market – is one of the hallmarks of our industry, and one that I trust will see us through these tough times.