Until recently, it would have been hard to even imagine the key prospects that smart lockers would suddenly offer to so many people. The revolutionary features, adaptive approach, and innovative aspects that smart lockers are offering to so many businesses around the world are fast gaining popularity.
The influence of smart lockers in today’s business environment can be easily grasped from the fact that many businesses’ core operations are becoming increasingly and entirely dependent on the use of smart lockers.
In simple words, the flexibility of smart lockers in providing better asset security, storage management, and anytime access convenience features are just three of the many benefits of smart lockers that are enabling smooth functionality and mobility to many businesses and organizations.
In this article, we highlight the key aspects of smart lockers and how intelligent lockers can help your business thrive and succeed in better ways than before.
What is a smart package locker?
Smart package lockers, as the name suggests, offer a more secure, convenient, flexible, reliable, and safer way of storing and distributing parcels, packages, and other valuable stuff by using smart technology integrated solutions.
From the point of managing and analyzing its independent functioning to monitoring the package or other items and equipment placed in it, a smart package locker can pretty much perform many minor and major tasks on a standalone basis.
Requiring little to no human intervention for most purposes is what differentiates a smart package locker from a traditional locker.
Core components of smart lockers
To better understand the smart package locker systems, it is important to know about their core components. Here is a brief explanatory list of the components of smart lockers.
1 # The body of the intelligent locker
As far as the physical appearance is concerned, there aren’t many differences between how traditional lockers and electric lockers look from the outside.
Both have the same kind of ventilated metal doors and doorknobs. However, there isn’t any keyhole in smart lockers, and many have automated doors that pop opens themselves when unlocked with a pin code.
2 # User authentication panel on intelligent lockers
Indeed, the user authentication panel on intelligent lockers is what depicts their smartness. Besides having a mere keypad for entering the pin code for unlocking the locker door, many other forms of security are also available.
These include swipe cards, smartphone apps, biometric scanning features such as for unlocking through fingerprint, facial recognition, or eye scanning, etc.
Besides offering multiple ways of locking and unlocking smart asset lockers, there also is a feature to restrict certain user access as well. This can help in controlling the staff from not being issued unauthorized equipment or restricting their access at certain times of the day.
3 # Content surveillance in smart parcel lockers
Another great feature of smart parcel lockers is their ability to monitor the assets they contain. This is also known as content surveillance.
Techniques like attaching the passive RFID tags to different equipment can be a reliable and cost-effective manner to monitor the condition, issuance, and return status of much high-class and expensive equipment stored in the smart locker facility.
4 # Management software to record usage and access logs
Each smart locker system comes with management support software that records each transaction involving any kind of use of the intelligent lockers by any personnel.
This automatic and precisely monitoring management system of smart lockers can generate reports to better enhance the compliance of SOPs among office employees and smart locker facility users.
Benefits of smart lockers
Smart lockers offer several benefits. Here are a few for your reference.
- Since intelligent lockers management software operates independently without any human intervention, no asset movement or transaction gets ignored. This way it becomes easy to track down unreturned equipment as well as any attempts of unauthorized access. This helps in reducing and limiting the loss of assets.
- Smart lockers can pretty much manage themselves as well as the equipment that they have been entrusted with. This way they help save a lot of labor costs as well.
- Electric lockers or smart lockers enable better regulatory compliance and can precisely track the persons to be held accountable in case of non-compliance.
- For organizations and businesses dealing with special, specific, or sophisticated nature equipment, smart lockers can be customized to suit the exact nature of their operations.
- Smart lockers always stay active and ready to serve the place where they have been installed. Whether it is about anytime access, limited or restrictive access, or even emergencies such as a power outage, smart lockers will always be ready to help you in the best possible manner.
Possible applications
Smart lockers offer a wide range of possible applications. Some of these include the following –
- Smart lockers can help in matters involving evidence tracking as they are operating continuously on a 24/7 basis.
- The loss by way of theft or damage of certain equipment in some organizations can amount to a significant financial burden. Smart locker systems can help monitor the issuance and return, as well as the condition of such equipment to help eliminate and reduce such losses.
- Smart lockers help physical retail stores with online purchase facilities to enable contactless delivery of goods through solutions like BOPIS and BOPIL.
- Smart lockers help parcel management staff to easily manage, store and distribute large amounts of packages received daily.