Bakers Basco, the membership scheme set up by five of the UK’s largest plant bakers to provide and manage an industry-wide bakery equipment solution, is stepping up its tech offering by implementing a new alarm system from LightBug with 4G connectivity, improved signal range and ring alerts triggered based on location.
Bakers Basco first adopted LightBug’s GPS tracking technology in 2015 by introducing trackers into bread baskets and dollies to track the whereabouts of its equipment. Since the initial implementation, the technology has been through a number of significant upgrades and enhancements – with the latest upgrade boasting a range of new features including:
4G connectivity – giving the signals an extra boost at locations where it might have struggled to get a connection in the past.
Bluetooth & Improved signal range – Bluetooth has been added to devices enabling Bakers Basco’s investigations team to identify equipment from a much broader distance in and around a particular location.
Ring alerts – a supporting mobile app that triggers with a ring alert when an item of Bakers Basco equipment is found being concealed at any given location.
“Technology is always advancing – and we must advance with it,” said Paul Empson, General Manager at Bakers Basco. “We’re always looking for better ways to locate equipment that ends up in the wrong place, so having this ability to improve connectivity and get real-time alerts to any missing equipment on location will make the difficult work of our national investigations team that much easier and more time efficient.”
Rather than procuring an ‘off-the-shelf’ solution which may mean limitations to battery life and size, a long-term partnership between Bakers Basco and LightBug has meant that the company has been able to develop bespoke solutions designed with Bakers Basco’s Omega baskets in mind. The alarms will be initiated into Basco equipment imminently to vastly improve the GPS capability.
Lightbug’s Chris Guest comments: “The Basco use case proved extremely challenging from the outset due to the range of places baskets end up and minimal space available. Thanks to constant “real-world” feedback from the Bakers Basco team we’ve been able to develop a product that covers operations in all environments and really pushes the current boundaries of technology. We’re excited to see how the new features and extended reliability enhance operations.”
The use of these trackers has significantly reduced losses and improved recovery levels by supporting Bakers Basco’s specialist tactical investigations team in finding and reclaiming missing equipment, which is often diverted out of the supply chain by third parties using it without permission. Evidence gathered through the use of GPS-equipped products has been instrumental in securing judgement in Bakers Basco’s favour in a number of court cases.
