Rapid-fire pitch: Phillips Connect Technologies brings chassis health, status mainstream

Locating intermodal assets and identifying which of those assets is available for use is one of the key attributes of Phillips Connect Technologies’ Intermodal Smart Solution. The product was demonstrated during Demo Day, a series of seven-minute pitches from companies, at MarketWaves 18 in November.

Cliff Creech, business development manager, said the solution includes both a dashboard and map view and includes data such as chassis health, warnings and alerts, chassis status, container status and container health. It shows individual units, their location, and points of interest, which can be loaded by the customer, although the software is preloaded with all rail and port locations in North America.

“We also have a tremendous amount of data off the unit and the ability to map that to see where the unit was historically as each of those events occurred,” he noted.

Utilizing this information can help an intermodal operator better utilize its assets. “The first step is knowing where your assets are,” Creech said. “The next is knowing whether it is in a state to generate revenue, and we do that on our dashboard by really focusing on, for a chassis, if it’s made into a container, is it in a position to generate revenue? Or for a container, is it loaded and in position to generate revenue?

Managers can zoom in on individual units to learn their health status, and if there is a problem, the system will identify that. Monitoring status such as container sensor, automatic tire inflation sensor, automatic braking system sensor, tail lights, turn signals, license plate light, marker lights, a manager can easily determine whether the driver needs to stop using that asset immediately, or whether the problem can wait until it reaches a repair location.

Drivers can also be notified before they arrive to pick up an asset and be rerouted to an asset if necessary. “A driver only has 660 minutes. Every minute his wheels are not turning, I’m losing money as a fleet and he’s losing a paycheck which leads to dissatisfaction,” explained Gerry Mead, director of innovation.

More of the popular demos, which aren’t allowed to use PowerPoint slides and must show the product in action, will be featured at Transparency19 in May.