Elastic M2M
Delivering Connected Intelligence for the Asset-Aware Enterprise

Effective management of operational assets across enterprise supply chains is critical to leveraging the connected economy in a globalized world. Predictably, condition-based monitoring of mixed asset fleets has become a matter of prime importance to ensure efficient business operations. While GPS-enabled devices do a fine job of simply tracking the location of mobile assets, businesses in the transport, warehousing, and last-mile delivery domains often find themselves facing a key obstacle – the lack of a comprehensive view and management control across all operating assets. The missing piece is effective harmonization of the massive quantities of data generated by operational equipment and related assets. These are typically manufactured by multiple OEMs, distributed through multiple channels and often come with different telematics systems, or none at all.

To realize the full value of their significant investments in operational assets and to make better, faster decisions, enterprises require true single-pane-of-glass visibility that spans a range of asset types and securely integrates related data from a nearly unlimited number of sensors, edge devices, video equipment, internal management systems and external databases. They need to become an asset-aware enterprise.

Elastic M2M is the leading provider of connected intelligence solutions for mixed operational assets. The Reston, Virginia-based company provides a cloud-native PaaS/SaaS software platform for smart IoT applications and enables a powerful unified view across mixed asset fleets in numerous industries. By leveraging massively scalable data ingest, configurable workspaces, advanced visual analytics, intelligent alerting and rules-based event triggers, Elastic M2M delivers huge gains in efficiency, productivity, utilization, safety and compliance for the management of operational assets throughout the enterprise. In an interview with the editorial team of CIO Applications, Terry Prime, President and CEO of Elastic M2M, discusses how his company has enabled critical digital transformation programs for major, global Enterprise customers and partners.

Could you provide an overview of Elastic M2M?

Elastic M2M has been providing connected intelligence solutions and enabling asset-aware businesses for nearly a decade. Our massively scalable platform supports over 1.3 million assets and processes over 2 billion sensor events per month. Our hardware agnostic platform can rapidly deploy smart IoT applications, providing customers and partners with secure and effective management of operational assets throughout their organization, regardless of location. Our advanced solutions are designed to work seamlessly across the asset value chain, from equipment OEMs, to transportation, logistics & warehousing, to distributors & dealers, to commercial business operations and even last-mile delivery.

We provide multiple solution deployment options that include: PaaS platform software services for Enterprise or Division-wide data integration, visual analytics and intelligent alerting, to complete SaaS application subscription services, device/SIM management and integrated eCommerce services that can be seamlessly deployed with industry partners & customers that supply separate IoT hardware and connectivity offerings to build their own IoT market solutions, to Full-Stack, rapidly configurable, low/no code market solutions for operations managers that require location & condition-based asset monitoring, utilization metrics, comprehensive inventory management and predictive maintenance.

Our connected intelligence solutions deliver operational efficiency, process optimization, and critical enhancements to safety & compliance for clients across diverse market sectors.

These include transportation, distribution, warehouse & material handling, supply/cold chain, automotive, utilities and construction markets.

What are some of the major market challenges that your company addresses?

Enterprises continue to struggle with efficient harmonization across mixed asset sensor data with critical data from other sources such as single-purpose telematics systems, video equipment, weight scales, tablet and phone mobile apps, enterprise management systems and 3rd party databases. The impact of this issue was heightened in the wake of the pandemic, as managers realized they did not have the visibility needed to manage rapidly changing supply chains. Elastic M2M solutions enable comprehensive asset data visualization, condition-based alerting and workflows across all systems along the supply chain. From inventory and container management at the port, roadway transportation to the warehouse, equipment and package management within the warehouse and out through last-mile delivery, our connected intelligence platform leverages a value chain approach to monitoring and managing assets, their condition and their environment in a single continuum. This makes it possible to manage the chain of custody throughout the supply chain rather than in narrow, siloed segments.

Could you cite some customer success stories?

In the transportation market, we replaced an unsuccessful 18-month telematics implementation allowing our customer to launch a fully operational IoT subscription service for Class 8 fleets within just 12 weeks. We’ve delivered multiple enhancements since the launch; helping the customer retain several at-risk clients and resulting in deployments of our technology with one of the biggest US fleet operators. In the warehousing and material handling market, a leading automotive OEM has multiple warehouses connected to our platform; giving them enhanced monitoring of equipment performance, utilization and condition, driver ID and certification verification, and increased safety and compliance levels.

Could you mention some of the features and functionalities of Elastic M2M’s platform?

Elastic M2M’s 360-degree platform integration architecture easily ingests data from many sources to create intelligent insights and provides a harmonized view across all our customers’ operational equipment and devices. The platform gathers data from multiple sensor types, along with data from third-party systems that together generate new levels of insight through analytics. The ability to collect and process this data and to make it understandable to our customers and usable by their systems is crucial to our way of operating. This enables our customers to manage all of their operational assets in real-time and even to share data with other value chain participants.

We have also invested heavily in our proprietary IoT Sensor Framework. Using this highly specialized framework, our platform is able to ingest data across a wide array of sensor types and allows us to rapidly detect and analyze problems associated with any asset, which the platform can then feed into our customer’s critical business management systems. Using high-level visual analytics, the platform also sends out customized repair instructions to operators, thus saving time and costs. Another innovative feature of the platform is the unique ability to integrate video directly with the sensors, enabling all types of video verification of asset performance using telemetry inputs.

What helps Elastic M2M stand out in the market?

Flexibility, speed, extensibility and a true Single-Pane-of-Glass capability are our core differentiators. From production to distribution, from sales to end-user asset deployments, and across the supply chain, these core differentiators help us deliver increased productivity, profitability and efficiency to mixed asset management. Our no/low code model enables business users to customize the platform without needing a team of developers or engineers. This level of flexibility, agility, and extensibility is unmatched in the marketplace.

What does the future hold for your company?

Elastic M2M’s platform is designed and built to incorporate AI components like predictive analytics and machine learning. We’re now designing how to best bring these features to market. We will bring more value into the whole supply chain by seamlessly integrating the warehouse and material handling – from the intermodal transport to the warehouse and then to the last-mile delivery, along with in-transit material tracking.