4 ms·
From what I've seen of this industry, there's two major hurdles to getting this working: One, getting the shipping companies to provide any kind of network infr
by wtracy 9y ago
From what I've seen of this industry, there's two major hurdles to getting this working: One, getting the shipping companies to provide any kind of network infrastructure would be like pulling teeth, and two, a lot of the companies doing this shipping are running on margins so tight that they care about things like saving 25 cents on a box. Their idea of cheap is completely different from yours.
I'm interested in solving a slightly different issue: could you build a cheap device that records accelerometer data while an item is in transit, to create a record of which way a box was oriented, and how hard it was dropped? Maybe provide a USB interface to download the data on arrival? Something like that would be interesting to businesses that ship fragile, high-value items and want evidence to back up the claim that items were damaged in transit. (I'm thinking of things like television sets.)
- wolfgang42 9y agoThere exists already mechanical drop and tilt sensors, such as [1], which are commonly used for this purpose. A search for "shipment data logger" results in some electronic devices which do what you propose, though most of them are more expensive and seem intended for reuse e.g. when shipping machinery to a location for installation. [1]: https://www.uline.com/Grp_332/Damage-Indicators https://www.uline.com/Grp_332/Damage-Indicators
- tyingq 9y agoPopular Mechanics did some tests with a logging accelerometer. Nothing cheap enough to be practical, but illustrates the potential usefulness: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/reviews/a6284/which-shipping-company-is-kindest-to-your-packages/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/reviews/a6284/whi...
- siscia 9y agoThe connectivity issues is clearly a major issue, the idea would be to actually pay the carrier to install the receivers. Honestly I don't know the industry and this is the reason why I am here asking, so please correct me if I am wrong. I believe that shipping companies are the least interested in this product. The one interested are definitely companies that will receive the shipped good. Suppose Adidas, a company that makes clothes in southeast Asia. I believe that they are extremely interested in knowing where their pallets of Egyptian cotton is so that they can have an idea of when start the production. The whole idea get even more interesting when you add more intermediate. The cotton is about to get to "denim ltd" so they will start the production in two days and they will ship my denim in a week from now, great I have an extra of slack for the maintainance.