On 9/11, New York City was hermetically sealed. Trucks bound for delivery were stuck inside and outside of the city until the travel ban was lifted by mid-afternoon. Directed out of the city with National Guard escort in the mid-afternoon, I found Rt. 95 north bound to New England eerily quiet. We were one of the few cars on a major highway usually jammed with traffic.

Across the country in Mountain View, California, Mark Nelson remembered that “it was spooky how quiet is was” as he passed Moffitt Field in the Silicon Valley every day for the week post-9/11 that air traffic was halted, bringing international trade with the U.S. to a near standstill.

Nelson, who is Senior Director, Communications at Savi, a Lockheed Martin Company, has the weighty task of explaining to the world how his company’s e-seals can help prevent tampering of cargo containers, whether loaded in Singapore or off-loaded in San Diego. Savi also sells real-time freight and container tracking technology with an emphasis on ships, truck and rail.

A key concern is keeping those radioactive suitcase bombs from ever hitting the streets of New York City. Also part of Savi’s mission, says Nelson, is keeping tabs on cargo as it traverses the world in the most cost-effective, efficient, and environmentally sound way possible.

With the recent terrorist plot foiled at Times Square, Nelson has been thinking a lot about how the supply chain and environment can be blown up, along with a major urban center, when terrorists strike. Stating the obvious, Nelson said when terrorists score hits as massive as 9/11 or the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, it’s obvious that there is a huge impact on the nation’s supply chain, as well as the global supply chain. Had the bomb detonated in Times Square last month, Nelson said he imagined the following scenario would have taken place:

“I can imagine that all key routes in and out of the city would be blocked, tying up both commuter and commercial traffic for miles in all directions. Of course, the same would hold true had the U-Haul trailer blown up on the RFK Bridge, which was temporarily shut down anyway.  Had explosions occurred in either incident causing widespread damage or loss of life, traffic would have ground to a halt. In addition, it is likely that commercial transport hubs such as shipping and airports would be slowed while authorities more closely scrutinized those areas for potential threats.”

The impact on the environment is less obvious than the impact on a company’s bottom line as goods don’t get delivered, but just as destructive, Nelson agreed. Idling cars create greenhouse gases, waste fuel, and can lead to accidents as drivers become frustrated.

Savi and other manufacturers in this sector can’t stop a terrorist intent on causing mass destruction that raises havoc with international commerce, not to mention killing people. But Nelson said real-time tracking and management solutions not only promote supply chain efficiency, “but help to reduce the carbon footprint. This, in turn, results in lower impacts to the terrestrial as well as climatic environments.”

He also noted that getting goods across borders as quickly as possible not only puts them out of risk of a terrorist attack, but helps reduce idling. “This is because the e-seals communicate with U.S. Customs’ information systems, enabling Customs to automatically know whether there has been a security breach-if not, the trucks are quickly cleared for passage.”

He adds that the move to wireless tracking of containers and other goods in the near future “will create a true Internet of Things. This connectivity, using clean and wireless technologies, has the added benefit of reducing environmental impacts and improving sustainability management in the supply chain and beyond. Savi also leverages solar power in particularly sunny and remote parts of the world to generate power in its RFID readers, which helps conserve and reduce energy consumption.”  wt



Contributing writer Amy Zuckerman covers high-tech and sustainable supply chains.