July/Aug 2004

BuckHickman InOne, one of Britain's leading suppliers of industrial tools and related products, reports a striking success in tracking and recovering a stolen power drill, and says the recovery has had "a dramatic effect" in reducing theft for the company.

Facilities manager Colin Buckley explains: "An event like this sends shock waves through the company which last for months afterwards, deterring subsequent thefts."

The incident followed a series of thefts from the company's Coventry base, prompting it to investigate asset tracking systems. The one it chose was from Podsystem, a specialist in this field, and included an mtrack battery-powered tracking device (a box little bigger than a cigarette packet), which was tucked into the drill's packaging.

A motion detector alerted the company to the theft and reported the new location of the drill - a nearby town. The second stage of the tracking was then invoked, involving a mobile mtrack "finder" unit which narrowed the location down to a single private house. The police arrived and found the drill, along with hundreds of items stolen from other companies, and the thief was subsequently convicted.

 

Podsystem's tracking device uses GSM mobile phone and RF technology to provide the tracking information (not GPS). It is available through resellers, and can be leased for as little as £7 a week.