Your team intervenes as soon as something is wrong with a shipment, not just upon arrival.

Shipment Monitoring is the continuous monitoring of location and condition of sensitive, high-value, or time-critical shipments across road, sea, and air. SmartMakers Shipment Monitoring delivers position, temperature, humidity, light, shock, vibration, acceleration, and pressure in a single tracker. It is used in medical technology, special machinery, aerospace, automotive, electronics, and chemicals, as well as for time-critical equipment shipping in on-site service.

SmartMakers Shipment Monitoring combines three features that are available individually but rarely in one device: airline-certified for active operation in the aircraft cargo hold, ATEX and IECEx certified for explosive areas through the Actility partnership, and location plus condition in a single tracker. This eliminates the usual combination of separate GPS tracker, temperature logger, and shock logger with three data silos.

Shipment Monitoring closes three gaps that can become costly in regulated and high-value transports: the visibility gap during mode changes between road, sea, and air, the air freight black box through airline certification, and the manual compliance documentation for MDR, FDA, and GxP. A single tracker provides the complete data set from factory to recipient. Deviations are reported in real-time, not just upon goods receipt.

Airline-certified means that the tracker can legally and safely transmit actively in the cargo hold of a commercial aircraft. Most trackers on the market are not, which is why they must be deactivated or removed before the flight, precisely on the most critical route. SmartMakers Shipment Trackers remain active throughout the entire flight phase and provide seamless data on position and shipment condition even over intercontinental air transports.

During transport, temperature, humidity, light, shock, vibration, acceleration, and air pressure are recorded, each time-stamped and position-accurate. Which sensors are needed depends on the shipment goods and is determined at kickoff: Pharma and medical technology typically require temperature and humidity, high-value machinery and prototypes require shock and vibration, ATEX shipments additionally require pressure. Rule-based alerting immediately reports threshold violations via email or other digital channels.

Shipment Monitoring accompanies the shipment itself on the journey from the factory to the recipient and captures the condition of the goods in addition to the position. GPS Asset Tracking accompanies reusable assets such as special load carriers, swap bodies, or service equipment in circulation. In other words: GPS Asset Tracking measures where your container is. Shipment Monitoring measures where your shipment is and in what condition it is currently in, including sensors and audit trail for regulated industries.

Shipment Monitoring does not replace the carrier's tracking but complements it with data sovereignty at the sender. Carrier tracking ends at handover and does not provide condition data on the shipment itself. Those responsible for high-value, sensitive, or regulated shipments need their own data on location and condition, independent of the carrier. The tracker travels with the shipment, across modes, without switching between multiple carrier portals or systems.

SmartMakers Shipment Trackers are available for single and multiple use. For defined outbound lanes, we use single-use trackers that are recycled after receipt. For rotational shipments like pharma cold chains or high-value equipment, multi-use trackers are returned and refurbished. Which variant fits depends on lane profile and cost-effectiveness. Single-use is suitable for plannable one-way routes, multi-use for regular corridors with return logistics.