Smart Cities

Semtech Corporation has announced that Green Scale Alchemy (GSA), a leading developer of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for asset management in the retail and supply chain industries, has integrated Semtech’s IoT devices operating on the LoRaWAN^® protocol into its IoT-based pool management platform. The platform enables accurate pallet management to increase logistical efficiency and has already been rolled out by Giffard, a large-scale French liqueur manufacturer, to remotely manage its packaging assets and tools across two of the company’s large warehouses.

“By integrating IoT devices operating the LoRaWAN protocol, GSA is among the first in Europe to offer private networking capabilities and flexible devices to meet the needs of today’s supply chain managers,” said Frédéric Sammut, CEO at GSA. “Leveraging the LoRaWAN protocol provides accurate inventory data over long range, enabling managers to increase the efficiency of their logistical processes to reduce associated costs and increase sustainability.”

“GSA’s innovative solutions based on the LoRaWAN protocol enabled Giffard to transform its existing packaging and pallets into connected assets through innovative and simple retrofit. This allowed improved fleet management and the allocation of resources with integrated tools for more efficient production,” said Pierre Jouanneau Giffard, COO at Giffard. “Increased management efficiency allowed Giffard to optimise its workforce and material resources to improve profits.”

A standard in the logistics industry, wooden pallets deliver an estimated 95 percent of Europe’s consumer goods. GSA identified the shortcomings of legacy pallet-based shipping and developed its solution to leverage LoRaWAN networks to optimize the remote management of pallets in real time.

GSA’s platform based on the LoRaWAN protocol delivers comprehensive insight into the location and environmental status of the individual pallet, including geolocation capabilities to identify pallet location in a warehouse or in transit. This reliable data enables managers to track assets through the supply chain from manufacturing to distribution and out for delivery. Additionally, amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, smarter logistics management and geolocation in warehouses allows organisations to move assets only when necessary and keep employees safe through social distancing.

In June 2017, Giffard deployed GSA’s solution to its newest liqueur production plant, a state-of-the-art site that manufacturing up to 20,000 bottles per day. The plant consists of two 3,000 square meter buildings dedicated to liqueur production and warehousing respectively. By utilising the IoT platform, Giffard receives and audits its production data to identify inefficiencies in its warehousing workflow and as a result remotely manages all its packaging assets and tools within its sites.

“Integrating proven IoT geolocation solutions operating on LoRaWAN enables customers to reduce logistical inefficiencies and reduce cost,” said Marc Pegulu, Vice President of IoT Product Marketing in Semtech’s Wireless and Sensing Products Group. “By developing its solution to utilise the LoRaWAN protocol, GSA created a flexible, scalable IoT platform that monitors and reports pallet status, condition and location in real time. These enhanced metrics help keep inventory safe and accounted for throughout the management cycle and deliver customers a faster ROI.”

To learn more about LoRa devices, visit the Semtech website.

About Semtech’s LoRa^® Platform

Semtech’s LoRa device-to-Cloud platform is a globally adopted long range, low power solution for IoT applications, enabling the rapid development and deployment of ultra-low power, cost efficient and long range IoT networks, gateways, sensors, module products, and IoT services worldwide. Semtech’s LoRa devices provide the communication layer for the LoRaWAN® protocol, which is maintained by the LoRa Alliance®, an open IoT alliance for Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) applications that has been used to deploy IoT networks in over 100 countries. Semtech is a founding member of the LoRa Alliance. To learn more about how LoRa enables IoT, visit Semtech’s LoRa site.