01 Feb 2019

Groupe PSA, IBM and Sigfox team up on container tracking

Groupe PSA, a French car manufacturer, has opted for a “Track&Trace” solution based on IBM’s cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and Sigfox’s international low-power wide area network, to track the movement of sensor-equipped containers between its factories and its suppliers in real-time.

The solution is currently being deployed at several Groupe PSA sites and the three partners plan to offer it to other European manufacturers, starting this year. The services it enables will be used to help reduce production line breakdowns and packaging waste. IBM handled integration into the industrial environment, from adapting the sensor for this specific use case to the “As a Service” container tracking solution. It already includes IBM’s analytical services.

At the end of the supplier consultation phase that led to Groupe PSA’s selection of IBM, the solution was co-created and developed during a design thinking session at IBM Studio with Groupe PSA’s logistic experts. It was then industrialised within IBM France’s ScaleZone, a structure federating open ecosystems to develop multi-stakeholder projects. This co-construction approach was made possible thanks to the close collaboration between IBM, Groupe PSA, and Sigfox, which sought to bring this solution to an industrial scale.

“We are constantly looking for technological solutions to meet with the needs of our factories and to be as efficient as possible. This “Track&Trace” system allows us to know, individually and in detail, where our containers are located… It is a real disruption and a new step in the digitalisation of the Supply Chain,” said Yann Vincent, EVP manufacturing & supply chain, Groupe PSA.