Hapag-Lloyd has taken the first step in its major project to equip its entire dry container fleet with real-time tracking devices.
The first of these IoT devices are now being installed on dry containers at the CMR depot in Wilhelmsburg, a district of the shipping company’s hometown of Hamburg. In the following weeks and months, installations will begin in other selected container depots in North and South Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Within the next year, up to 200 depots worldwide will take part in the installation of 1.6 million of these devices on standard containers. The majority of the line’s containers are expected to be outfitted with these devices by the end of 2023.
“The containers leaving our depots with a tracking device will now be fully visible to us and, in a next step, to our customers as well – whether they are in a warehouse or moving on a truck, train or barge. We believe that the increased transparency has the potential to improve the management of strained supply chains for the benefit of our customers,” says Dr Maximilian Rothkopf, COO of Hapag-Lloyd.
The devices will be able to transmit data in real time from each container. For example, they can supply location data based on GPS, measure ambient temperature within the container, and monitor any sudden shocks to it.
“Digitalising our entire container fleet will be a challenging task. In this first rollout phase, it will be important to streamline all processes together with our IoT partners to achieve the technology’s full potential. At the same time, we aim to make this product quickly available to our customers,” says Andrea Schöning, senior director, container steering.
