By Ohad Peled, Product Advertising Supervisor at Sony Semiconductor Israel.
Over the previous couple of years, asset monitoring has emerged as a important enterprise operate, and is estimated to develop to a $34.5B market by 2032, based on Customized Market Insights. Whether or not companies are monitoring a worldwide provide chain or maintaining tabs on costly tools, realizing the place belongings are always is crucial. It allows companies to optimize provide chains, forestall theft, and scale back operational downtime.
There are a number of technical and business challenges in deploying such an answer, which may end in failure to ship the promised worth. Some options battle to keep up correct monitoring as belongings transfer inside or throughout totally different amenities, particularly in the event that they undergo an indoor atmosphere. Others undergo from extreme energy consumption, which requires comparatively excessive upkeep. And plenty of are marketed as one-size-fits-all platforms, however they lack the robustness wanted to deal with complicated, real-world situations.
This text will take a more in-depth have a look at these challenges and discover the options that may assist corporations successfully scale their asset monitoring capabilities.
The Enterprise Impression of Asset Monitoring
In as we speak’s financial system, the power to know the place your high-value belongings are at any given time has turn into a aggressive benefit. From manufacturing crops to logistics suppliers, corporations are beneath stress to run lean, environment friendly operations whereas assembly rising buyer expectations for transparency and velocity. Asset monitoring makes that attainable.
Companies with efficient monitoring options profit from:
Lowered loss and theft: Actual-time visibility considerably cuts asset misplacement and shrinkage.
Quicker operations: When belongings are straightforward to find, workflows speed up, decreasing downtime and rising throughput.
Higher selections: Location and utilization information feed into analytics and forecasting fashions, bettering planning throughout provide chain and operations groups.
These aren’t simply operational wins—they translate into higher margins, improved customer support, and lowered danger.
When Monitoring Breaks Down – The Problem of Asset Monitoring
Regardless of the promise, many monitoring deployments fall quick. The issues are sometimes not technical—they’re enterprise points in disguise.
Connectivity Black Holes
Whether or not it’s a manufacturing facility flooring, a warehouse basement, or a transport container, belongings usually transfer out and in of areas the place connectivity and protection are spotty. In case your monitoring answer goes darkish throughout these transitions, you’re not monitoring—you’re guessing.
Battery Drain
When trackers go offline as a result of useless batteries, the system fails. And for those who’re scaling to a whole lot or hundreds of belongings, guide battery upkeep turns into a non-starter. Options that require frequent charging or swapping turn into too costly and labor-intensive to handle.
Scalability Bottlenecks
Some techniques work nice in a pilot program with 10 gadgets, however collapse when rolled out throughout an enterprise. Deploying an answer for tens and even a whole lot of gadgets is basically totally different than deploying 100 thousand gadgets. Frequent points embody:
Problem managing massive fleets of gadgets.
Lack of integration with present operational techniques.
Restricted configurability for various asset varieties or environments.
These points don’t simply frustrate IT groups—they block the very outcomes monitoring is meant to ship.
Search for a Resolution that Ties Expertise to Outcomes
Selecting the best asset monitoring answer means trying past buzzwords and specializing in what would be the finest match for what you are promoting, to realize essentially the most worth from the answer.
Connectivity – LTE-M and NB-IoT for Dependable, Broad-Space Protection
Asset trackers usually fail the place protection will get tough—in city canyons, or on the transfer throughout amenities. That’s the place conventional or legacy mobile falls quick.
Enter LTE-M, a low-power wide-area (LPWA) expertise constructed for IoT. It presents higher RF sensitivity, and stronger, extra steady connections than older networks like Cat-1bis. Which means fewer dropped indicators and extra constant location information—even in RF-challenged environments.
In contrast to LoRa, which is determined by non-public networks, LTE-M works over public mobile infrastructure and helps seamless mobility and roaming. It’s a better selection for enterprises that want real-time visibility throughout complicated operations with out the trouble of managing non-public towers or gateways.
Higher protection and fewer outages translate into on-time deliveries, fewer delays, and extra correct information—irrespective of the place your belongings go.
Battery lifetime: Low Energy Modes = Longer Gadget Life
Battery points are one of many greatest causes asset monitoring techniques could not ship on their promise at scale. Frequent recharging provides labor prices, creates downtime, and disrupts operations—particularly for corporations managing hundreds of gadgets.
Fashionable trackers resolve this with sleep modes and event-based transmissions that scale back energy use when belongings are idle. Paired with LTE-M connectivity, which presents higher sign energy and decrease vitality calls for, tailor-made to IoT use circumstances, reminiscent of PSM and eDRX, in comparison with older choices like Cat-1bis, these techniques can ship battery life of three–5 years or extra.
Some gadgets even use photo voltaic panels to remain powered in out of doors settings. Fewer useless batteries means fewer service calls, much less downtime, and decrease working prices—making it a lot simpler to scale monitoring with out scaling complexity.
Mass Deployment – Fixing Scalability Bottlenecks
Scalable asset monitoring begins with a basis that may develop. Options constructed on cloud-native platforms with world mobile help eradicate the necessity for region-specific {hardware} and make it simpler to handle massive, distributed fleets.
Integrating with present operational techniques is simply as important. Trackers with open APIs and modular firmware allow seamless communication with logistics platforms, ERP techniques, and analytics instruments—decreasing friction and IT overhead.
Configurability is what ties all of it collectively. A versatile monitoring platform permits companies to tailor replace intervals, sensor integrations, and energy profiles to suit the distinctive wants of every asset sort, from high-value tools to stationary stock.
With the appropriate structure, scaling isn’t a danger—it’s a characteristic. By investing in modular {hardware}, strong connectivity, and adaptable software program, companies can confidently roll out asset monitoring throughout hundreds of gadgets with out compromising efficiency or management.
Suppose Lengthy-Time period, Act Sensible
Asset monitoring isn’t a plug-and-play answer—it’s a strategic funding. When accomplished proper, it delivers actual enterprise outcomes: value financial savings, operational agility, and higher service supply. The secret’s discovering expertise that works not simply within the lab, however in the true world—at scale, with minimal upkeep, and within the environments your belongings really transfer by means of.
So, when evaluating monitoring platforms, don’t ask: Does this gadget have a cool characteristic? Ask: Will this technique nonetheless be working for us when now we have 50,000 gadgets within the discipline and we’re in a position to meet the required service stage we decide to?
In regards to the creator: Ohad Peled serves as Product Advertising Supervisor at Sony Semiconductor Israel, the place he leads strategic initiatives to advance mobile IoT adoption worldwide. He focuses on simplifying wi-fi connectivity throughout LTE-M, NB-IoT, and 5G applied sciences. Ohad brings deep cross-functional experience to drive market alignment and buyer success within the evolving IoT ecosystem.
