Tracking the future

Technological advancement has transformed almost every field imaginable. Artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) has particularly impacted the vehicle tracking industry which has now expanded into a wide range of fleet management services.

Car tracking dates back in Pakistan to an era where car theft was rampant and car tracking services provided some relief to car owners. Today, the tracking industry has expanded to providing services like agriculture monitoring, fleet management, live video tracking, optimising logistics, cold chain tracking, sales field-force management and even generator tracking.

Numerous companies are offering tracking services in Pakistan such as Falcon I, TPL Trakker, Vtrack, Megtech and Tracking World amongst many others. If one takes a closer look at the services, most of the companies focus on vehicle tracking, whereas Falcon-i and TPL are the two companies offering advanced services.

In lock step with the world

Head of Innovation and Technology Falcon-I Ebrahim Tiwana believes that the underlying tracking technology in Pakistan is at par with global standards. “Pakistan has one of the best tech talents in the world but more focus needs to be on solving problems for end-users. This is what Falcon-I as a fleet management company is doing,” he said.

“Falcon-i is a company that utilises AI and IoT to take tracking to the next level. Tracking companies are evolving from being location providers to being solution providers. New problems are being solved leveraging robotics, AI and computer vision,” said Tiwana.

Mentioning the different types of services that Falcon-i provides as an IoT company, Tiwana informed that they have a range of products that companies can leverage to solve actual day-to-day problems. “We offer a wide variety of tracking options from passenger vehicles to large freight vehicles. Our wide selection offers you to choose from GPS trackers for vehicle and trucks to a tracker for agricultural vehicles which allows you to monitor movements on specified areas of land.”

“We help our customers take better care and maintenance for their fleets using our fleet management solutions. Our Fleet Care solutions allows our customers to optimise the maintenance cycle based on engine hours, kilometres travelled, or months/weeks passed as per their requirements. Additionally, we also offer solutions for field force management which allow our customers to track movement and communicate with their workforce while on the move,” he said.

Falcon-i is one of the few tracking companies which maintains all key functions in-house including customer support, technicians and a dedicated technology team. This has allowed the company to provide wholly customisable solutions to their corporate customers, providing them with a mix and match of products and services to suit individual companies’ needs.

Digitisation has wholly revolutionised the tracking facility for their consumers. If one takes a look at the mobile applications that come with the purchase of a tracking facility, it is to be noted that it enables customers to keep an eye on the movement of their vehicles at any given time.

It also allows them to view different reports with details like the car temperature, driving behaviour, speed, mileage, health and kilometres travelled for the number of days. Gone are the days of calling a call centre agent to locate a vehicle – now, the user has all the controls in their app - from locating the vehicle to switching off the engine.

Other than that, keeping a track of your loved ones while they are out on the road is what every person is concerned about. The ‘Video Live’ feature takes care of everyone, from young children strapped in their car seats to young adults driving the car and remotely monitors their whereabouts and driving skills.

Seeds of AI growth

If we talk about agriculture, which is one of the major contributors to the country’s GDP, outdated practices have kept the sector a step back from its full potential. At a time when countries around the world are using the latest technology to increase the production of their land, Pakistan’s agriculture is still relying on old technology.

This is where tracking companies are now giving their services to give remote access to field owners. “Agri-Monitor is designed to give you complete control over your land. It gives updates about assets – crops, machinery, and field force – all without the need for physical presence,” says Tiwana.

The cloud-based platform formed to monitor the land, gives insights about how to optimise all agricultural resources such as seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides – allowing the user to view how much of the area has been covered or omitted and if any area has been covered more than once.

“It also allows the user to improve operational efficiency, where they can set speed limits on the equipment, machinery and parameters for how much area each covers – ensuring the crops are treated with the utmost care. It allows user to receive real-time data and enable them to be in the driver’s seat even from miles away,” he said adding that the reports generated put data insights at fingertips, allowing the user to monitor key performance indicators.

According to Head of Agriculture and Director Operations Meskay & Femtee Trading Company (MFTC) Hussain Tawawala, the agri monitor technology has helped them keep track of their fields, machinery’s health, increased their production and saved time and money for the company.

“Our company deals with the agriculture from seed to plate. We are working on promoting mechanisation in agriculture process under our Agri division. We try to help farmers work with mechanised approach with the use of tractors and laser levelers.”

“We are also using transplanters, where we sow the nursery and the use the transplanter to take the nursery that is being developed to plant across the fields and it could be 100 of acres. This process is known as Roomba. Then we use mechanized and combined harvester which efficiently harvest a variety of grain crops,” he said.

Hussain shared that all of the machinery that is being used to increase the production and speed of the agriculture have sensors installed to keep the track of the machinery. “As we are working all around Sindh, managing the maintenance and the availability of the machinery is difficult. So we have installed Agri Monitor in all our fields and machineries,” he said.

“This helps us in keeping track of the health of our machinery. Earlier, we had to wait until a problem arose in our machinery which used to affect our performance as it used to come unexpectedly. But since we installed Falcon-i’s Agri Monitor, we are informed beforehand so that we use those numbers to compute life of machines and schedule the maintenance for all our machines,” he said adding that the sensor also enables them to know when the blade of the harvester or transplanter has gone down and up, which helps them keep track of the working hours.

He further said that by knowing the exact location of the machines, they can easily move to the next destination and manage the work accordingly. “This has helped us to enhance the agriculture practices, growth and production. The response time of the system is really quick. This is definitely the future of agriculture,” said Tawawala.

Fleet Care is another area where tracking has enhanced car maintenance. We have seen many of the fleets stuck on the road due to poor maintenance. That happens when you are not aware of the condition of the car. Fleet Care and Fleet Control enables the fleet owner to stay in control of all their vehicles.

“Fleet Control enables the owner to keep in touch with every single vehicle in the fleet whenever they want. It puts the owner in the driving seat even when vehicles are miles away. The location can be tracked and whether they are secure. It helps in keeping track of the health of the vehicle. The vehicle owner will not have to wait for the mechanic to identify the problem but the app will give individual data for each vehicle,” said Tiwana.

Better management, increased productivity

The tracking has not been limited to vehicles but they are also tracking humans now. The Campus Tag service has advanced the employee monitoring system. This enables the automatic attendance once the employee enters or exits the building, they don’t have to check-in manually. It also keeps an eye on the building and can restrict the access of any unauthorised person in any of the room of the building. All this can be controlled through the application.

Some of the other services that have been included in the tracking business are Logistic Optimiser that gives advanced delivery and dispatch solutions for leaner operations, smarter decisions and better customer experience.

Companies are the greatest beneficiaries of this latest tracking technology, with a service like Field Tag, no matter what city your team travels for work, their exact location can be monitored all the time. But the benefits don’t end there. Cold Chain is another revolutionary service that is now available. For instance, with Covid-19 vaccination imports, where vaccines need to be stored in a controlled and cold environment, Cold Chain gives remote access to the temperature of products, and goods can travel with ease while temperatures are being monitored - whether they are in the warehouse or on the road. With these benefits on hand, who knows what the future holds?