Tuesday, March 8, 2005 | 10:52 a.m.
In a semitrailer outfitted with plasma-screen displays, leather couches and a small classroom, a group of General Electric Co. employees Monday morning monitored the paths of 30 low-orbit satellites.
While it comes as little surprise that the international conglomerate would be interested in such satellite technology, the company is applying it aggressively to a traditionally low-tech industry -- trucking.
GE Equipment Services brought its mobile showroom to the Rhodes Ranch Golf Club to show off its VeriWise Asset Intelligence product to attendees of the Truckload Carriers Association, which is meeting this week in Las Vegas.
GE's technology is designed to track semitrailers, allowing companies to maximize an asset that is typically mismanaged because of its wandering nature.
"Many companies own or lease more trailers than they need because they don't know where (the trailers) are," said Patrick Brennan, spokesman for the Trailer Fleet Services division of GE Equipment Services.
By allowing trucking companies to track trailers, companies can keep tabs on high-priced cargo as well as keep their trailers full and on the road, Brennan said.
Landon Wagner, director of training for the American Institute of Technology's Las Vegas truck driving school, agreed.
"If you have a trailer full of $2 million in cargo, it's a good idea to know where that guy is," he said. "This is good stuff."
Christopher Kelley, GE's product manager for VeriWise, pointed to a recent case in Canada where a trailer of potato chips was stolen. The client used the GE system to locate the trailer in a warehouse that, when police entered, contained other stolen trailers.
He said the incident also points to the homeland security aspect of the technology.
"When you think about potato chips, how much value is that?" Kelley said. "But what about something being put into those potato chips? Again, it's a security issue."
Kelley said the current technology is now being expanded to include door sensors that will let a monitor know if the load is opened and interior sensors that will allow remote assessment of what cargo, if any a fleet of trailers contains.
"The trailer has evolved from a mute asset or a dumb asset," Brennan said. "Now it's a smart asset ... As a transportation company, you've got to keep your drivers moving."
And Nevada needs that movement as much as any state in the nation. Citing statistics from The Road Information Program, Brennan said that 94 percent of the goods flowing into Nevada do so by highway and that Nevada is home to the fastest growing warehousing and distribution center industry in the Western United States.
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