Inventory Control: LoJack gets into supply chain management

Okay. The headline stopped me. It was something about LoJack and the supply chain.

Why, I wondered, is a company best known for products that let you keep track of your car, truck or motorcycle doing in the supply chain business.

The answer from LoJack will have to wait for another day. But, I did get some insight into the company’s product and thinking from Alex Brisbourne, the president and CEO of Kore Telematics, the company providing the wireless data network for the LoJack Supply Chain Integrity solution. 

Here’s the idea. Real-time asset management has emerged as the go to application for RFID technology. If you have any doubt, check out Michael Totty’s story on new ways to use RFID on page R13 in the Technology section of today’s Wall Street Journal. He describes three ways companies as diverse as a chain of sushi restaurants, a law firm, and a bank are using RFID to track assets that are important to them. My own view is that when the things we write about every day in Modern start bubbling up in the WSJ, or when a sushi restaurant starts tracking raw fish with RFID, the technology is approaching mainstream. 

LoJack SCI is taking the concept of tracking assets through the supply chain one step further, adding a security play that would allow a company to recover high value assets that might get stolen in route. Instead of RFID, it’s using GPS.

“About $30 billion worth of merchandise is stolen in the supply chain every year in the U.S.,” explains Brisbourne. “In this instance, we’re not trying to track the location of the shipping container or the vehicle but of the high value asset itself.”

LoJack SCI has developed a GPS tracking device that can be placed at strategic locations within a pallet load or a container. Then, just like tracking down a stolen Honda Civic, the tracking device emits a signal that can be accurately tracked on a 24/7/365 basis. “A company can pinpoint the location and seize its stolen cargo,” says Brisbourne. Likely candidates for the technology are manufacturers of high-value electronics, pharmaceuticals and food products. So much for Tony Soprano high-jacking a truckload of t-bone steaks.

When it comes to cars, LoJack says it has a 90% chance of tracking a stolen vehicle within 24 hours, and often to within a few hours. At that rate, the steaks might still be ready for the grill.