Guest column Securing the homeland: Asset tracking in a layered security environment // by Ted Langhoff and Nishant Pillai
The need to effectively secure and track cargo, not just at the port, but throughout the supply chain — long before its arrival in the United States — has become an important priority and factors significantly into efforts to ensure U.S. national security
Ports in the United States and abroad, through the years, have leveraged myriad and increasingly sophisticated technology — including Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS), and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) — to track cargo and inventory at ports and in other secure locations to prevent theft and tampering. Since 9/11, the need to effectively secure and track cargo, not just at the port, but throughout the supply chain — long before its arrival in the United States — has become an important priority and factors significantly into efforts to ensure our national security.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has worked with U.S. trading partners, industry port operators, and other stakeholders to identify and deploy creative and effective measures that ensure the safety of cargo entering the homeland while minimizing disruption to the flow of international commerce, which fuels our global economy. The United States and many of its trading partners have created, and today leverage, a layered security framework — which uses advanced information, physical security measures, detection technologies, and intelligence — to ensure the integrity of the supply chain from the point of container loading to arrival in the United States without hindering the flow of commerce.
Asset tracking devices can/could factor into the layered security approach by helping shippers as well as port operators to ensure that containers have not been moved or opened without authorization while they are in a secure port. The current state of technology, as well as cost factors, currently limit utilization of asset tracking systems to secure the broader supply chain. A series of DHS-driven initiatives are looking to eliminate such barriers and extend the role of asset tracking devices and sensors in securing the end-to-end supply chain and, ultimately, the homeland.
Breaking down barriers
Historically, port environments have used asset tracking devices primarily for inventory control and equipment tracking. These same systems could be used to facilitate the flow of commerce through use in “green lane” programs designed to streamline cargo processing at the port of entry, as well as in land bridge initiatives that involve transporting, via roadway or rail, U.S.-bound goods that arrive in Canadian or Mexican ports to customers in the United States.
RFID-based asset tracking devices have also played a role in supporting several Department of Defense (DoD) and homeland security initiatives. Many of these systems, however, require a reader system to be installed at various locations throughout the supply
