Roambee can make air cargo shipping a breeze with real-time sensor data monitoring, analytics, and control-tower action. To understand how this happens, let’s follow your consignment (bottles of some fine wine!) on a trip to Vegas!
If you are shipping goods by air, you are probably familiar with EDI systems like Cargo IQ.
These EDI systems have gone a long way in digitizing the air shipment process so you no longer have to follow-up about your cargo’s status at every step.
It is convenient and has a vast network of airlines and freight-forwarders.
But, are tools like Cargo IQ enough to run your supply chain efficiently or can you do much better?
Roambee is an example of a tool that can help you push your limits of air shipping efficiencies using prescriptive analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and undiscounted human-enabled control-tower action.
What is Roambee?
Roambee is an on-demand goods and assets monitoring service that combines real-time sensor data with AI-enabled analytics, alerting, and control-tower action aided by process automation (RPA). It creates a digital twin of your supply chain!
It enables the right on-ground business actions by monitoring your air cargo using sensors and external data elements to fill the gaps between milestones defined by EDI systems like Cargo IQ.
How is Roambee Different from a System Like Cargo IQ?
Cargo IQ is a non-profit initiative, backed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). It was initiated with the sole purpose of improving the quality and efficiency of air cargo operations. Watch how it works here.
Cargo IQ focusses only on transaction completion of milestones like Check-in, Storage, Boarding, Customs, and Release. On the other hand, Roambee actually cares about what happens to your cargo during these 20-odd stages in the journey, and protects your cargo as a best buddy or guardian would.
Roambee’s data-enabled actions are sensor-driven and don’t rely on manual entry, which makes it extremely cost-effective for an IoT solution.
Learn about the difference in cost between Roambee and a typical IoT system here.
To find out how Roambee takes care of its friend ‘your air cargo’, let’s follow their journey to the glam city of Vegas.
The Journey to Las Vegas Begins…
1. Checkout
Roambee tells you whether your consignment departed on time and in good condition.
You just checked out of your hotel in Dallas. You’ve booked a cab!
It’s not very different for your air shipment which would have checked out of its origin warehouse and is on a truck to the airport or a consolidation point.
Once you have attached Roambee’s sensors onto every item to monitor their location and condition in real-time, Roambee can tell you whether your consignment departed on time, whether the condition (temperature, humidity, etc.) was good enough at the origin to not impact its quality, whether it was handled with care during loading, and whether all the packages were loaded intact.
It can also track detention at origin and who is responsible for it.
Roambee works with almost no input from the user. AI-enabled bots fetch information about your consignment using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) from tools like CargoIQ to further provide location and condition insights.
2. The Ride to the Airport
Roambee can tell you whether you really need to rush to the airport.
You are in the cab!
In case of your shipment, your cab is your transporter or freight-forwarder’s truck. What in the world can happen to your cargo on the way to the airport? It could be delayed, is subject to high temperatures if there is no air conditioning, or get damaged if it’s dropped during the loading process.
Roambee can help if and when any of the above occurs. Roambee can tell you whether you really need to rush to the airport as your flight could be running late, or even worse, re-scheduled.
When in transit on this first-mile journey, Roambee monitors the location, condition, and security of your parcels using sensor data and alerts you if it senses something wrong – so your goods reach on time and in full.
If there is a route deviation that could put your goods in a not-so-nice part of town, an air-conditioning vent failure that could impact quality, or an in-transit warehouse delay that could get it to miss its flight, Roambee acts to put it back on track.
The best part is, Roambee does all of this without relying on the vehicle or transporter you use.
3. Airline Check-in
Roambee's package-level visibility validates that your consignment reached in one-piece.
You’ve reached the airport.
Roambee can tell you exactly when the shipment left from your transporter’s warehouse and when it arrived at the carrier entry gate. It can further tell you about detention at drop-off gates, the time it took to unload, whether its condition is still intact, and how it is being handled at this location.
Package-level visibility also ensures that you know your consignment reached in one-piece.
4. Waiting at the Lounge
Roambee’s sensors monitor the condition in storage and notify if goods need attention.
Let’s say you arrived a bit early or even on time, you may have to wait a bit before boarding. You pick the lounge and order a drink.
It’s no different for your goods. This step is referred to as ‘airport storage’. Except that in the case of your goods, things need to be monitored as there are no notifications about departure times or condition requirements.
They could miss their flight too or the scorching Texas summer heat at Dallas Fort Worth International could get to them. What’s worse? Your goods don’t get the same air-conditioning that human-cabins do, and during take-off, the runway heat can get a bit unbearable in the cargo compartment.
The Roambee sensors monitor the location of storage and can notify personnel if there needs to be attention paid to any packages in the consignment. These notifications can range from the cargo getting too warm in the sun to it being handled improperly within the storage area.
Roambee becomes the chaperone of the cargo till it moves to the aircraft for departure.
5. Boarding
Roambee confirms that your cargo has boarded.
You’ve got that annoying final boarding call to proceed to the gates and then the tarmac. Oops! No aerobridges are available.
It’s almost the same for your goods.
With Roambee, you will instantly know if the cargo was left behind, especially since Roambee is monitoring the departure times of the aircraft. The Roambee location sensor and control tower kicks in to ensure that it is loaded along with the rest of the parcels on the right aircraft.
6. On-Board Comfort
Roambee audits how comfortable your consignment is inside the luggage compartment.
It’s wheels up and your flight has departed!
Even before you are cruising at 30,000 feet, Roambee has the ability to predict that the flight has taken off. Roambee’s AI digs into systems like the airline baggage and cargo systems to automatically match the manifest details with sensor data, so even without a network at 30,000 feet, arrival ETA is always on your screen. Sensors monitor and analyze in-flight cargo conditions and transmit this data to the cloud when connectivity resumes upon landing.
What’s important to note here is that by knowing which flight your goods are on, the ETA, and historical data about clearance procedures downstream, AI predicts when the goods will be cleared and move out of the Vegas airport. Using this prescriptive prediction, Roambee automatically schedules onward deliveries using robotic process automation (RPA) with on-screen OCR functionality or APIs.
7. Deplaning
Roambee helps you begin last-mile planning.
The fasten seatbelt sign is off and you’ve landed.
Roambee learns about the onward destination of your goods from its location and the shipment manifest and ensures that the last-mile pickup is scheduled well in advance. Roambee can automatically update the CargoIQ event stream to notify everyone tracking the cargo. It continues to monitor the condition of your goods during deplaning, on the tarmac, and when they reach the storage facility. It warns you if any package went missing during unloading as well!
8. Baggage Claim/Ground Transportation
Roambee follows your cargo, monitoring it through customs and exit.
Back to waiting, and this time not with your Priority Pass membership benefits at the lounge.
Your goods are placed in storage. They complete clearance formalities and then a truck arrives to have them picked up.
Roambee continues to monitor the condition and accurately forecast ETA based on the data at every step. For instance, it informs you if your shipment customs status shows that “goods are under inspection,” but they haven’t been opened yet, so you can expedite the clearance process using your local CHA.
While all of this is happening, Roambee keeps your customer informed and re-schedules windows of deliveries with your consignee as required using RPA.
9. The Ride Home
Roambee accompanies your cargo all the way to the last mile.
Yay! Your cab has arrived at the McCarran International Airport.
Your bottles of fine wine are headed to The Venetian for an evening ball.
A tool like Cargo IQ only tells you that your goods are on their last-mile, but Roambee would tell you what is happening mile-by-mile. If anything untoward happens in transit or during a pit stop at a local Mickey D’s, Roambee’s control tower will be the first to respond.
As Roambee continues to take good care of your precious consignment from door-to-door, you just got a notification that the wine has arrived ahead of schedule.
The party begins!
Roambee: Your Air Cargo’s Best Friend
What did we gather about your air-cargo’s friend and guardian ‘Roambee’ from this journey?
1. Roambee is not just any supply chain intelligence tool. It is a sensor-driven tool that fills the gaps between EDI milestones.
2. Roambee also fills the gaps outside of the airport activities, such as first-mile journey, last-mile journey, warehousing by your freight forwarder, and more.
3. Roambee does not need any manual data entry or infrastructure-based systems like RFID installed at airport facilities.
4. Roambee constantly pushes the efficiency envelope using AI-driven prescriptive intelligence, automation, and a control tower. It doesn’t just tell you that a transaction or milestone is completed.
5. Roambee IQ can be used by a shipper, a freight-forwarder, or an airline without depending on any other parties in the chain of custody.
6. Roambee IQ doesn’t need API integration to work with systems like CargoIQ, it uses AI bots and RPA to fetch or push data across non-integrated systems.
