KORE, LoJack SCI partner to track, monitor, recover high-value products

FORNEY, Texas and ATLANTA—KORE Telematics, a digital wireless services provider specializing in machine-to-machine (or M2M) communications, and LoJack Supply Chain Integrity in early May announced a partnership in which KORE will provide GSM wireless services to power LoJack SCI's advanced supply chain monitoring and security solutions for the global transportation industry. The partnership makes the tracking, monitoring and recovery of individual crates of high-value products, such as pharmaceuticals and electronics, a reality.

According to LoJack SCI director business development Randy Amerine, partnering with KORE made sense due to the companies' matching philosophies. “Any time you're working in the security space, and particularly when you're looking at the type of supply chain security issues that we get involved in with our clients, it's absolutely critical that our vendor partners be reliable,” Amerine said. “KORE, as a leader in the GSM space, has certainly demonstrated that to us. Also, organizationally KORE's philosophy on partnering with clients like us fits the profile of the kind of company that we want to work with.”

KORE's GSM technology will allow LoJack SCI to offer shippers the ability to covertly track their assets at the vehicle, pallet and even individual product level, simultaneously—thus limiting exposure to theft and enabling manufacturers to audit their supply chain partners for adherence to security protocols.

Alex Brisbourne, president of KORE, says the driver behind the partnership is KORE's ability to provide globally available connections for a wide range of applications. “The key essentially is the ability to connect remotely located devices over the cellular infrastructures,” Brisbourne said. “We've been driving the integration of cellular, wireless data into a multiplicity of applications over the past five years or so, and currently have our network inside the applications of some 550-plus vertical market ASPs, from medical, to asset location, to security and parolee management, to the RSI Videofied application. The key is designing the right network.”