Smart GeoSeals pilot report - using technology to improve humanitarian supply chains
A blog by Susan Long, a Frontier Tech Coach
The Problem
People are unable to access emergency malnutrition supplies because suppliers are unaware of where stock has been depleted.
Rural Health Distribution Points (HDPs) are often the last lifeline for those seeking vital nutritional supplements, especially ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) that is specifically designed to prevent severe wasting in children.
Knowing the location, quantity and availability of nutritional supplies across an entire supply chain is critical to saving the lives of malnourished children. When aid agencies don’t have real time data on stock levels, it can result in empty shelves (or “stock outs”), supplies expiring (sell by dates) and inefficiencies in delivery.
Health Distribution Points (HDPs) are typically single rooms, located in rural areas, across a vast geographical range. Additionally, in hard-to-reach places, including conflict zones, there is often limited or no electrical and/or internet connectivity. This means that agencies are reliant on manual stock taking, often supported by overstretched staff who are in turn reliant on cellular communications that can be lost in times of conflict.
These problems could be avoided if there was a system capable of tracking large quantities of nutritional supplies and supplements, from main distribution hubs to their final destination at HDPs, Zonal Warehouses and other health distribution facilities. But designing a viable and scalable tracking system is challenging as tracking technology can be expensive, and the logistics involved in the distribution of aid materials is complex.
The Solution
A low cost device and accompanying interface capable of gathering data on where nutritional supplies and supplements may be located by transmitting tracking event data wirelessly in a secure and timely manner to a global dashboard.
Arribada, a telemetry solutions company primarily working in the environmental and conservation sector, was brought on board to support in designing a new, low cost tagging solution that could be utilised to automatically detect the location of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) and Ready-to-Use Supplementary Food (RUSF).
The solution utilises RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology that is commonly used for asset tracking. This technology can provide automated data, without the need for human intervention. The pilot used UHF (Ultra High Frequency) passive RFID tags as they didn’t require batteries and were available at a low-cost ($0.10 at scale) as a sticker, meaning they could be applied to cardboard boxes that nearly all RUTF and RUSF nutritional supplies are transported in.
GeoSeal “Hubs” were also created. These hubs contain a passive infrared sensor capable of detecting when a person approaches a doorway by detecting a change in heat. When a person is detected, the hub scans for any RFID labels within range. If it detects a GeoSeals RFID label the Hub records the RFID label’s unique identifier and transmits this to an online database with a timestamp. Each GeoSeals Hub has a unique identifier which links it to its location. This data can be interpreted to gain insights into stock levels throughout a supply chain.
This allows for the automated monitoring of stock levels at clinics and can generate a clear understanding of where and when nutritional supplies have been delivered. Furthermore, should the system prove successful for malnutrition supplies, there is considerable scope to expand to the tracking of vaccines, other medicines, and eventually general aid supply chains.
Goals of the pilot
The pilot explored the following key goals:
Identify where GeoSeals could add the most value across the nutritional supplement supply chain.
Design and develop a proof-of-concept GeoSeal Hub and accompanying user interface.
Explore options for producing a cost efficient tracking system and understanding the potential economies of scale.
Undertake an in-country trial to demonstrate that the GeoSeals concept is viable, and that GeoSeals Hubs are fit-for-purpose and can provide value to aid agencies.
Key activities
The initial pilot phase was implemented in four sprints (January 2022 - December 2022); and a follow-on phase (March 2023 - March 2024), consisting of three further sprints.
1) Initial pilot phase (January 2022 - December 2022)
To determine whether GeoSeals could be developed at a viable cost, the team broke down the costs of the delivery (including goods, transport, packaging, admin etc) and the representative cost of introducing GeoSeals Hubs across the supply chain, tagging common nutritional supplies and the value and cost of a typical shipment.
Work was also completed designing suitable enclosures for the GeoSeal Hub’s electronics, that would use the minimum amount of plastic and be cost effective to scale in the future.
The value proposition of GeoSeals was captured in a presentation and used as a tool for communicating to, and receiving feedback from partners and key stakeholders. Participants in these workshops requested that the supply chain for RUTF and RUSF in Ethiopia be used for a field trial due to the need and potential for high-impact.
Towards the end of 2022, preparation began to deliver a proof-of-concept GeoSeals device in readiness for a limited trial in warehouses and clinics within Ethiopia, this included the development of the necessary software to receive and securely store incoming data.
2) Follow-On Phase (March 2023 - March 2024)
In early 2024 six GeoSeals hubs were installed across HDPs and warehouse facilities in Ethiopia and GeoSeals stickers were applied to selected nutritional supplies at central warehouses in Addis Ababa to test the detection of tagged nutritional supplies sent through the supply chain to rural HDPs.
The Hubs’ ability to detect tagged nutritional supplies entering the trial will be trialled over a 4-month period by monitoring each GeoSeal Hub at the installation locations, together with the resulting cloud data to ensure that supplies were confidently being detected and that all required data was received.
A simple dashboard was produced to highlight the status and location of the GeoSeal Hubs, as well as the boxes being detected.
Outcomes - key findings from the pilot:
Finding 1: A viable and valuable ‘last mile’ tracking system for critical aid commodities could be integrated into the RUTF/RUSF supply chain in Ethiopia
The team met with FCDO and UNICEF colleagues to discuss their needs, their willingness to trial the technology and their current independent monitoring approach. They explored potential use cases, validated the desirability of use cases through user research and scored use cases against each other for priority list.
They Visited UNICEF and WFP’s main warehouses and rural distribution points to map the current supply chain, understand the type of aid shipped and associated costs, and review the warehousing process and existing packaging in relation to current and future environmental legislation. They also undertook a scoping trip to a range of factories in Ethiopia supplying ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) and ready-to-use supplementary food (RUSF).
They found that UNICEF’s central database system does not have real time data of stock levels at many of the points across the distribution chain. A lack of electricity and infrastructure means that data cannot be easily transferred to a central office, or known by others in the supply chain. The GeoSeals pilot concluded that UNICEF would benefit from installing GeoSeal Hubs at different points in the supply chain in order to understand stock levels in near real-time.
Comparatively, the WFP is currently implementing a point-to-point supply chain, with clinics served directly by the main warehouse. The pilot was able to similarly conclude that the WFP would also benefit from having GeoSeals Hubs installed at Health Distribution Points and at their central distribution warehouses in Dire Dawa, with data from GeoSeal Hubs made accessible and incorporated into their existing central monitoring databases and systems.
Finding 2: It is possible to produce a GeoSeals system at a low enough to track low-value items at scale
The team researched RFID scanners, tags, labels and communication methods to arrive at ballpark costs to ascertain what data each solution can provide, how it is powered, and what communications infrastructure it requires etc. They conducted a range of tests using suitable commercial off-the-shelf components and spoke to potential country teams about aid items distributed to their areas and the supply chains used to discover if the proposed technology is suitable for application in these contexts.
They discovered that implementing a GPS-enabled system could cost as much as £150.00 per package, far exceeding the cost of the low-value items that require tracking. Instead an RFID-enabled solution was explored as an inexpensive and widely available alternative. The cost of implementing a Hub-based GeoSeals solution was estimated at £0.18 per RFID label (i.e. a GeoSeals sticker) and £459.21 to produce a prototype GeoSeals Hub, including an external antenna for warehouses and large doors
Based on the cost of implementing a trial of GeoSeals in comparison with other commercial solutions, it was determined that GeoSeals could be a cost-effective solution for tracking even the lowest cost commodities.
Finding 3: Valuable data can be securely collected and communicated to aid agency workers and logistical teams where it can be used to inform critical decisions
A data structure was devised which could store, manage and handle GeoSeals data in preparation for a scoping trip to Ethiopia in October 2023, where tests could be conducted on delivery of data to UNICEF HQ and ingestion by their own services. A UK-based trial was conducted to test hardware and software and produce data showing tracked boxes in a local location.
The pilot team’s preferred solution for a data delivery solution was the MQ Telemetry Transport protocol (MQTT). This lightweight, open and simple protocol is designed to be easy to implement and could be integrated with existing UNICEF and WFP systems. This meant that an aid agency’s warehouse could have 10-20 Hubs working across a wide area, synchronised and reporting data back to any system that wants to know - in this case, an aid agency’s services where data is visualised and information acted upon. In this simple way, system components can be mixed and matched to easily scale GeoSeals and cater for different scenarios.
Additionally, MQTT caters for poor data links where a signal may be lost, which helps to provide a stable data service and builds integrity throughout the system regardless of scale.
To discover the maximum distance a tag could be detected and the optimum combination of antenna and tag design, two different antennas were tested along with two different types of RFID tags. Tests were also conducted to explore how much the signal is affected when the tag is attached to containers of solid food. The required range for the hub was calculated at approximately 1m from the top of the door frame and it was shown that dipole-based RFID tags perform best with both a helical dipole and ceramic antenna.
Finding 4: GeoSeals technology is capable of providing automated data required for real-time monitoring of stock levels to increase delivery efficiency and reduce stock-outs of critical malnutrition supplies.
The team set out to discover if the system could monitor stock levels of RUTF and RUSF, distributed by both UNICEF and WFP, at 6 selected HDPs. To do this they:.
Installed GeoSeals Bubs across four Health Distribution Centres in Ethiopia.
Installed GeoSeals Hubs at the central UNICEF warehouse in Addis Ababa and at the Hararghe Zonal Health Office warehouse.
Applied GeoSeals stickers to selected nutritional supplies so that when distributed to Health Distribution Points GeoSeals Hubs could be tested to see if they detected their arrival.
Tested the performance of GeoSeals as tagged boxes entered the trial locations over 4 months (tests included detection range, battery life, cellular connectivity, and overall system performance).
Monitored data transmitted and received in the cloud to understand the status and performance of GeoSeal Hubs throughout the trial.
Produced a simple dashboard to highlight the status of each GeoSeal Hub and the location of any tagged nutritional supplies detected by the Hub.
And used the data collected to advance the development of a business model canvas and to identify future business / funding opportunities and pathways to deliver GeoSeals at scale.
At the time of writing this four-month trial is still underway with tagged nutritional supplies planned to be distributed in May 2024. However, the GeoSeal Hubs have successfully detected tagged parcels and the ID of each parcel detected has been displayed on screen and reviewed by officials on site in Addis Ababa at the main UNICEF warehouse and at rural Health Distribution Points.
The team will now continue to maintain the in-country GeoSeals Hub and present the outcome of the trial to the British Embassy in Ethiopia and to other stakeholders and supporting partners interested in the outcome.
