TRACKING AND MONITORING EQUIPMENT AND PERISHABLE GOODS IN THE GLOBAL MILITARY SUPPLY CHAIN FALLS UNDER THE REMIT OF MILITARY LOGISTIC DEPARTMENTS AND AUTHORITIES. UNFORTUNATELY, THERE IS EVIDENCE THAT THESE AUTHORITIES DO NOT PROVIDE CARGO MONITORING AT THEIR BEST.

There are military deployments in which tens of thousands of containers or pallets remain unaccounted for each year without a proper e-tracking system. 

Recently the Media reported missing during transportation of ammunition pallets and even missing missiles. Obviously, such waste or misplacement of costly resources is bad enough.

Improperly tracked or missing containers hold not only food items and supplies necessary to sustain the troops and keep them healthy, but also equipment and material, including vehicles, air conditioners, earth moving equipment, and more. It is not unusual for key shipments to arrive late or to miss transshipment. They may even be untraceable in ports and countries suffering critical logistic issues themselves. Moreover, some logistic operators have been known to hide their problems, keeping missing containers in certain port yards or other “off-the-grid” facilities. Such operators are not always happy for clients to monitor and analyses the whole transport process in order to ensure their money has been well spent.

There is also the problem of clients being frequently overcharged for demurrage fees but with the ZTS the Client will know exactly when the container is returned to the shipping company yard.

With modern, technologically advanced real-time monitoring provided by Zenatek Tracking Service (ZTS), these problems can be eliminated quickly and efficiently. Our service is very cost-effective, and we have a proven track record of excellence in the field. Today, we track goods globally and have recently expanded our service to a much broader range of goods, without sacrificing the discretion our clients demand.

We’ve created a system that is intentionally simple and stable, based on user-friendly web-based software. Nor it is necessary to implement overstated monitoring requirements that increase battery costs and may lead to the hardware device being returned to the sender. It is critically important to have the capacity to determine and trace all shipments’ routes, and to receive immediate alert notices when something unexpected or unpleasant happens to a shipment. These alerts are sent by Zenatek’s web-based system via e-mail to any computer, mobile phone or other device assigned by the client. To provide an accurate geographical position for a monitored shipment at any point, the ZTS tracking device may use its internal receiver, which is compatible with the GPS/Glonass standard and is also Galileo ready. Alternatively, it can leverage information from mobile network cellular towers. The user can remotely configure all of the system’s communication parameters even after a shipment has departed the loading place…

ZTS can also store a container’s packing list, password protected, in the web-based application, together with lading documents and health certificates, thereby enabling the receiver to trace the shipment’s contents and route with a mere swipe of a finger on their tablet. The ZTS device will also trigger alarms when a reefer container’s internal temperature, and humidity as well, deviates from a predetermined level set by the client. It then alerts the user when the temperature returns to the required level. Additionally, it will alert the user if flammable goods within a container are approaching the point of ignition, or if a container’s doors or a pallet’s seals are subjected to tampering. It will similarly alert the user if a container or pallet is turned on its side, capsized and involved in a crash or destructive incident.

The ZTS has geo-fencing service capability. This means that if a trailer or container or even particular equipment placed in a location and moved to another one, the Zenatek Tracking Device (ZTD) will wake-up and trigger the corresponding alert. The device also provides geo-coded proof-of-delivery information to the client, who can rest secure in the knowledge that the shipment has reached its destination, and that there has been no unauthorized opening of a container’s doors tampering and this even with a pallet. Other currently available tracking technologies do not fare well in performance comparisons with ZTS, and some of those products can be very expensive. In fact, some operate on the basis of monthly fees, or payments per communication received by the client, or both. 

ZTS can trace goods in pallets and conforms to air safety regulations for use in air transports. Pallets may be transported and tracked in containers; they may be transferred to train or truck, and then reloaded into containers based on any intermodal chain. ZTS will track accurately and provide status reports throughout, monitoring for any damage, tampering, interference or deviations.

ZTS devices need not be retrieved at destination points because all traced route and shipment information is in the system and has already been transmitted – the devices may be used on a “one way” basis. This eliminates all costs associated with unit and data recovery tasks, such as recovery personnel costs and unit forwarding, reconfiguring and restocking. These aspects of ZTS in particular make it ideal for military logistics applications.