The Internet of Things (IoT) has been maturing for 20 years with some companies driving long-established strategies with high volumes of connections and demonstrably successful business cases. These established deployments are helping their owners generate money, save costs and achieve compliance but, as Peter Fowler, senior vice president North America at Quectel Wireless Solutions says,
LKQ North America, the provider of alternative vehicle parts, is now using Tractable’s Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) to accelerate and optimise the recycling of the salvage vehicles the Company procures across their North America segment.
The AI uses computer vision, a technology that allows algorithms to reason based on images, to assess the specific damage on each vehicle and determine which parts can be recycled and reused. Tractable’s AI has been trained on millions of historical examples and performs on par with human intelligence, increasing the level of consistency and accuracy.
Yogi Shivdasani, vice president of North America supply chain at LKQ, says, “We are excited to be the recycled parts provider to apply AI to the effective and efficient procurement of salvage vehicles. Tractable’s AI has enhanced our expertise with identifying high quality parts on salvage vehicles and to make sure those parts can be recycled and reused. Tractable further assists LKQ in delivering the right parts, to the right place, and at the right time.”
Alex Dalyac, Tractable co-founder and CEO, says, “Through this collaboration with LKQ North America, our technology is improving the value of parts recycling for the entire North American auto repair ecosystem. By finding reusable parts at scale and ensuring they are distributed more quickly, our technology is already having a positive impact on both the auto industry and the environment.”
Recent world events have accelerated digital transformation programmes in organisations of all sizes and sectors. As businesses create more connected products, integrate new technologies or enter new partnerships, they need to ensure they are not exposing their data and systems or their clients’ data to cyber risks, says Paul Kenealy, co-founder & managing director at
It is exhilarating to be involved in an innovative and fast-paced technology sector with the potential to transform lives and disrupt business models, acting as a real global gamechanger. IoT is just that, says Nick Earle, CEO of Eseye. Its potential across a diversity of sectors from medicine to manufacturing and logistics to retail is immense
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented change to airports. Global passenger traffic declined by 94% year-on-year in April 2020 according to Airports Council International.
Even as restrictions ease, numbers remain low. Eurocontrol reported air traffic throughout Europe was 61% down in May 2021 compared to May 2019, says Richard van Wijk, global aviation practice lead inside Nokia.
While traffic isn’t expected to return to pre-COVID levels until 2024, Eurocontrol recently predicted an upward trend and hope for some recovery across Europe this summer, with the most optimistic scenario showing numbers rising to up to 69% of 2019 levels during August.
Airport costs are predominantly fixed. Even with low passenger numbers and declining revenue they need to maintain operations for cargo flights. Operational, maintenance, utility and personnel costs remain constant.
So, how will they manage their economic turnaround and tempt passengers back as countries tentatively reopen borders for international travel? The answer can be found in accelerating digital transformation programs, allowing them to leverage automation and enable new services and operational efficiencies.
The connected airport
Tomorrow’s airports will be all about digitalisation, otherwise known as Airport 4.0 , targeting operational excellence, enhanced awareness and greener, safer spaces. Stakeholders will communicate more efficiently and be able to collect data from connected sensors to analyse operations, passenger flow, environmental information and more. To do this cost-effectively and securely, airports will have to re-think their connectivity strategy.
Today airports use a mix of connectivity technologies; copper-based wireline, Wi-Fi and public wireless services. Although these still serve a key purpose in the digital airport, there are concerns over costs, service reliability and flexibility.
To create the connectivity foundation for Airport 4.0, airports should consider 4G and 5G private wireless technology. This will allow them to flexibly and efficiently connect any device, application sensor or sub-system in a secure way inside the terminal, at airside and landside.
Coaxing back passengers
It’s no surprise that even as restrictions lift, some people are wary of traveling. To tempt passengers back, airports must first show how they can keep them safe.
One way is to implement biometrics systems and move toward touchless and ticketless travel. Using sensors and cameras to scan passengers’ features in real time as they navigate the airport can reduce bottlenecks as well as the need for boarding cards or passports decreasing the chance of delays when documents are misplaced.
Another solution is to implement queue monitoring systems and collate passenger numbers from sensors. As queues reach capacity in terms of social distancing or to maintain efficiencies and keep people moving new lanes can be opened automatically.
Private wireless provides the connectivity and low latency capabilities to support the real-time demands of these applications. The ability to collect data from sensors will allow airports to show how they are adhering to COVID regulations and introduce new services more rapidly.
Implementing a sustainable turnaround and enhanced passenger satisfaction
To step away from paper and pencil, airports will have to implement a connectivity service at airside that allows stakeholders to use devices anywhere. Private wireless is a perfect fit, allowing airports to purpose-build a network that ensures coverage and capacity wherever it’s needed, while keeping operational data securely within the airport campus.
Resource planning will be made much more accurate, and aircraft turnaround time will be reduced. Stakeholders will communicate over a single, multiservice network and airport vehicles will become mobile offices, reducing the need to return to base for more sustainable operations.
The extensive coverage enabled by private wireless will also allow airports to connect mobile cameras within vehicles to enhance operational and situational awareness. This will enable airport operation centre teams to enhance decision-making by providing a view of incidents that they don’t currently have using Push-to-Talk radios.
Enhanced operational efficiencies and awareness will also have a positive impact on passenger safety and satisfaction in terms of reduced flight delays and queues inside the terminal. Additionally, as private wireless networks offload operational traffic from Wi-Fi and public networks, capacity is freed up for a better passenger connectivity experience.
Soaring to economic health
Richard van Wijk
Using private wireless, airports will have more flexibility and agility to implement new services. They will be better prepared for a world where restrictions change dramatically, with the ability to not only leverage analytics to show how they are adhering to regulations but also to show customers how they are enhancing services to remain competitive.
As the world reopens, and the aviation industry begins to move on from the effects of COVID-19, airports have the opportunity to spark their economic recovery and transformation using private 4G and 5G wireless networks. By becoming Airport 4.0 digital hubs, they will benefit from extensive new capabilities and operational efficiencies that will streamline costs and help them tempt passengers back to the skies once again.
The author is Richard van Wijk, global aviation practice lead inside Nokia.
Qatar Airways Cargo announces that WebCargo by Freightos will be introduced across the European region effective 30 June 2021. Forwarders will be able to conduct eBookings with access to live rates and available capacity on the WebCargo platform.
With the implementation of WebCargo across Europe, the total count of countries in the airline’s network on the platform will increase to 32. This will allow customers to further digitalise their experience with the airline in the region, resulting in more process efficiencies and faster market responses.
Qatar Airways chief officer cargo, Mr Guillaume Halleux, says, “We are glad to further roll out the third-party eBooking platform, WebCargo throughout Europe, as we aim to provide digital connectivity for our customers and extend digitalisation across our operations.
This will bring in more efficiencies in the supply chain and provide multiple benefits for our customers. Our aim is to gradually roll out WebCargo throughout our global network during the year, providing convenience and transparency to our customers.”
Zvi Schreiber, CEO Freightos Group says, “We are so proud to have partnered with Qatar Airways Cargo, the world’s number one cargo airline, on driving global Digital Air Cargo (DAC) adoption. The hypergrowth of our eBookings in the last few months (up 1,000% year on year) has proven that forwarders are very keen to adopt real-time pricing, capacity, and eBookings, particularly in today’s volatile market.
Ultimately, this allows them to deliver better air cargo to importers/exporters. With significant expansion of our partnership with Qatar Airways Cargo, we are excited to drive a further acceleration of digital air cargo bookings in Europe.”
Since the introduction of WebCargo on 7 February 2021 in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa and Spain, Qatar Airways Cargo has been receiving high volumes of eBookings via the platform.
Digitalisation or digital future is a key pillar of the carrier’s strategy as it moves towards more systems that allow for dynamic pricing, automatic quotations, robotic integration and improved reporting.
Qatar Airways Cargo introduced a number of digitalisation initiatives like Robotic Process Automation for shipment tracking, Salesforce (Service Cloud), IATA’s One Record Pilot project with Agility and Champ and the roll out of WebCargo even during the challenging times of the pandemic. Excluding Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia.
GSMA is celebrating the return of MWC Barcelona, the mobile ecosystem event. This year’s edition of MWC Barcelona will be a powerful combination of a physical and virtual event the first of its kind since Covid-19. The GSMA commits to bringing the best of what the mobile industry offers to its 35,000 in-person attendees and thousands
The IoT (Internet of Things) building blocks from Infineon Technologies AG are becoming ever more powerful, energy-efficient, and smaller. Today, practically any everyday object can be enriched with smart functions to make life easier. Using system solutions from Infineon, Deed, a deep tech start-up from Turin, Italy, has been able to create a screenless yet
