Yabby Delivers On-Demand Glass Stillage Tracking

Europe's advanced glass market is experiencing a Renaissance, driven by extraordinary new technologies, stringent regulations, and growing customer awareness of sustainable and smart glass solutions. At the heart of this customer demand, manufacturers rely on reusable stillages to safely transport large sheets of glass, such as windowpanes, architectural panels, double-glazed units, and windscreens, between factories, warehouses, and construction sites.

Why RFID and legacy asset tracking solutions break down across modern supply chains.

Once stillages leave a factory, manufacturers face a constant challenge to pinpoint their location and predict the timeframe of their return. Many stillages are lost, stolen, misplaced, or recycled between factories, distributors, and customer sites. The lack of visibility makes it difficult for manufacturers to plan production and delivery cycles, while delayed returns disrupt delivery and construction schedules.

Francois Leroy, General Manager at Datanet IoT, says, "Manually tracking stillages is a time-consuming, error-prone, and frustrating task that is difficult to scale. When a stillage gap arises, it is often faster for manufacturers to simply buy or rent replacements, introducing a significant expense, particularly while misplaced stillages lie idle in unknown locations. Poor location visibility, delayed returns, damaged stillages, under-utilisation, and admin headaches all add cost, risk, and inefficiency to glass manufacturing operations."

RFID tags and other legacy trackers solved many operational issues around tracking stillages but introduced new issues too. RFID tags are easily damaged or broken off stillages in transit, creating an instant visibility void. Similarly, RFID solutions operate with fixed readers that cannot give location updates if a stillage goes missing between readers or sits idle in a forgotten corner. Various other legacy tracking technologies rely on slow, manual scanning, use short-range signals that prove unreliable in underground or remote locations, or require costly power sources or additional dedicated hardware.

How Datanet IoT and Digital Matter's Yabby Edge GPS tracker remove the guesswork from stillage tracking across complex supply chains.

With over ten years of experience designing and delivering reliable IoT-enabled asset tracking solutions, Datanet IoT helps some of Europe’s largest flat glass producers keep their glass moving safely in stillages across the region.

To leave the operational and cost issues of RFID and legacy trackers in the past, Datanet IoT partnered with Digital Matter to embed the Yabby Edge GPS tracker into its custom stillage tracking solution. Smaller than a bar of soap, the Yabby Edge offers flexible mounting options on a range of logistics assets and has a compact profile that makes it difficult to remove. An IP68 nylon glass housing encases each tracker to resist cracking, harsh weather, and prolonged outdoor exposure. Its IK07 impact rating assures customers the Yabby Edge can withstand drops, bumps, and knocks when stillages are stacked and moved.

Francois Leroy, General Manager at Datanet IoT, says, “The Digital Matter team readily collaborates with us on new solutions, and are always responsive to help us keep customers happy. We love their extensive line of trackers and the open box model which lets us easily connect to other platforms. Yabby Edge GPS trackers are ideal for tracking assets without a built-in power supply, as they operate for up to seven years on a set of AAA batteries. Small and lightweight, the Yabby Edge is easy to mount and rugged enough to withstand rough handling of stillages. We tested quite a few trackers and were impressed by the Yabby Edge's unmatched reliability over time.”

Yabby trackers are configurable to capture and share device data as little as daily or as frequently as hourly. Data can include location reports, latitude and longitude coordinates, a timestamp, the device ID, and optional movement or status information, such as battery levels or motion. Each tracker shares data to Digital Matter’s Device Manager, a cloud-based platform, over LTE-M or NB-IoT low-power cellular networks designed specifically for IoT devices. The platform uses the raw data to populate on-demand dashboards, giving customers visibility into stillage locations to within one metre. The dashboards use colour coding to give an instant status into stillages in use, empty, delayed, or due for return.

The Device Manager platform stores data, letting customers create reports and analytics from historical information to better inform decisions around reacting to potential stillage theft or misuse, optimise asset utilisation, improve turnaround times and more. Additionally, the Yabby Edge is configurable to issue alerts if a stillage leaves a geofenced zone, or if a stillage hasn’t moved for too long, arrives late or shows unusual handling. Usefully, IoT device data is readily available for customers to integrate into existing systems, such as ERP or warehouse management solutions to match stillage data with orders, inventory, billing, or to inform predictive modelling of demand.

Precise stillage location and condition data = time and cost savings, improved asset utilisation, and resilient supply chains.

Today, Datanet IoT solutions track over 10,000 glass stillages with Digital Matter’s GPS trackers. The team works closely with customers to address complex logistics, such as overseas shipments via maritime cargo containers, and collaborates with operators to identify the right combination of hardware and firmware, all with the shared goal of continuously improving asset visibility for customers.

On average, losses and damages of tracked stillages reduce by at least 80 percent due to on-demand location visibility. This translates into reduced replacement, repair, and rental costs which helps protect customer profitability. On-demand views into stillage locations frees up teams to perform more value-adding services because they do not waste time manually searching for stillages at critical points in the supply chain. Faster stillage turnaround and rotation enables better utilisation of existing stillage fleets and means fewer delays across supply chains, which improves customer experiences.

Leroy says, “When a stillage disappears or stays in a location too long, our solution lets our customers have a polite, data-driven conversation about stillage recovery without guesswork or emotions running high. Many of our customers have told us that when their customers know about the stillage tracking solution, they are motivated to return stillages promptly, because they know the manufacturer can see each asset’s location.”