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Sputnik 1 caused a sensation when it was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. Coming only two years after Moscow’s first thermonuclear test, the first man-made satellite seemed to confirm that the West was falling behind in the Cold War. American physicists were told to learn as much as possible. By studying its steady radio transmissions, they confirmed that Sputnik was in a stable orbit that circled Earth every 12 hours. They could calculate exactly when it would rise over the horizon at any location. With the maths reversed, they realised that the same method could be used to locate the observer. Navigation using celestial bodies was nothing new. Sailors had been doing it for centuries. But a system that used artificial satellites offered something faster and far more precise. The obstacle was cost. One satellite was useless. You needed at least four in view at once. That meant a constellation of 25 or more at a time when only one existed. So the question was simple... what purpose could justify the expense? The strategic rationale The answer came from the logic of mutually-assured destruction. Nuclear deterrence relied on the ability to launch a counterattack after a first strike. Missiles based on land or in airfields were vulnerable. If they could be eliminated in a surprise strike, deterrence collapsed. Submarine-launched missiles were the answer. Submarines could hide underwater, survive an attack and strike back. But there was a problem. Missiles fired from a moving submarine were extremely inaccurate. To plot a missile path, you need to know the precise launch point. On land that was easy. At sea it was a major challenge, but Sputnik offered a way out. This was the real reason GPS was created: to make submarine-launched missiles accurate enough to reduce the risk of nuclear war.

At the end of the Second World War, American military planners left millions of standardized pallets in Australia. They were bought for a steal by a little-known firm called Brambles. The company set about renting them to manufacturers, growers and retailers who, until then, relied on flimsy one-way pallets. Customers appreciated the higher quality and the convenience of Brambles collecting empties. Reuse proved cheaper than disposal, enabling Brambles to offer a better product at lower cost while turning a tidy profit. The model flourished. Brambles became a giant, running a pool of hundreds of millions of pallets. Many other pooling companies were founded in their wake. Today, billions of reusable containers, from grocery crates to roll cages to boxes for car engines, circle the globe. Prospects for further growth are strong: the fleet of reusable containers remains far smaller than the 100s of billions of cardboard boxes used annually. Environmental goals and regulations such as the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) provide further tailwinds. Yet reality often falls short. Reuse is cheaper only if containers are recovered quickly and redeployed many times. A lost container is a costly one. In open supply chains, losses and delays are routine. Why containers go astray Modern supply chains, whether retail, automotive or electronics, span sites owned by several firms, each with their own IT systems. These systems can track operations locally but are blind to what happens upstream or downstream. Once a container leaves one site, visibility can be lost. This is not only a problem for container management. Firms hunger for information on the whereabouts and condition of goods in transit. Separate company data silos make it very difficult to obtain. Too often, reusable containers are treated as an unwelcome compliance cost, the price of ESG pledges and regulatory diktats. What if, instead, they became a source of profit and competitive advantage? Containers as a digital platform Factories, farms, warehouses and stores may be run by different firms, but they share one thing: a common pool of reusable containers. Crates and pallets circulate through every corner of the supply chain. Once fitted with sensors, they cease to be passive carriers and become roving data collectors, capturing information across organizational boundaries. In doing so, they could dissolve silos and form the backbone of a new layer of digital infrastructure. The promise is clear: a supply chain made visible, predictable and efficient. To achieve it, trackers must meet daunting requirements: cheap enough to ride on low-value containers, smart enough to work everywhere without bespoke infrastructure, and durable enough to last the five to ten years of a container’s life. Meeting those demands would turn an old logistics workhorse into the foundation of tomorrow’s digital supply chain. The Sensize Tracking System Sensize has designed its tracking system around these constraints. It relies on two innovations: Parent/Child networking Cellular connectivity is ubiquitous and requires no fixed infrastructure. But cellular trackers are too costly to fit to every low-value container. Bluetooth trackers are far cheaper, but their short range (around 50 m) limits them to individual sites. Sensize combines the two. Most containers are fitted with low-cost Bluetooth Child sensors. A small fraction carries cellular Parent sensors. These parents collect data from nearby children and upload it via the mobile network. Because the parents travel with the fleet, coverage extends across the supply chain without the need for fixed infrastructure. Collaborative networking Supply chain sites hold many container types, such as crates, pallets and roll cages, often from multiple suppliers. If firms are using Sensize’s system, they can share the load –a parent tracker on a crate can collect data from a child tracker on a pallet, and vice versa. Data is uploaded, decrypted and delivered to the relevant supplier. Costs are effectively pooled, producing broader coverage than any one organization could manage alone. When assets become insights What began in the 1940s as a practical way to reuse military surplus has become one of the most important building blocks of modern logistics. Brambles worked out how to turn leftover wood into profit, while saving customers money. Digitized containers repeat the trick, although now the profit comes from data rather than wood. In an era of regulatory pressure and fragile supply chains, firms that grasp the opportunity and transform their boxes and pallets into roving sensors will not only cut losses but also gain visibility into flows of goods that competitors still struggle to find. What was once seen as a compliance burden may yet become the backbone of a profitable digital platform economy.

As we mark the end of summer and head into the colder months, it’s been a busy quarter here at Sensize. From reaching company milestones to globetrotting at industry events in the US, Germany and Spain, the Sensize team has been learning more about the spaces in which we operate and enabling us to provide a better asset tracking service than ever before. Find out all about it in our latest Quarterly Insights.

In this newsletter, we’re sharing our latest Sensize content and key company updates – plus, we have something exciting on the horizon!

As the EU introduces new legislation to extend producer responsibility and slash packaging waste, we break down what this means for businesses.