In the 19th century, civil engineers began studying the flow of liquids through pipes and canals. They discovered that the thicker the fluid, the more resistance it faced as it moved. They called this property viscosity, a measure of both how freely something flows through a system and the internal resistance that can slow it down.
Today, the same concept can be applied to supply chains.
Goods, like liquids, are meant to flow between warehouses, distribution centers, retailers, and ultimately, consumers. But in practice, that flow is far from frictionless. Equipment shortages, stockouts, spoilage, labor constraints, and human error mistakes all act as points of resistance. And when that resistance goes unnoticed or unaddressed, it compounds – slowing operations, increasing dwell time, driving up costs, and disrupting downstream performance.
A McKinsey report found that these supply chain disruptions can consume up to 45% of one year’s earnings over the course of a decade. The financial stakes are high and rising.
The shift from snapshot visibility to continuous awareness
The key to reducing that friction is visibility. But not visibility in the traditional sense – a barcode scan at the loading dock or an RFID read at a checkpoint. What’s needed is a more dynamic, real-time, and intelligent form of visibility. One that doesn’t just tell you where something is, but what condition it’s in, what environment it’s in, and whether it’s on track or going off the rails.
This is where Ambient IoT changes the equation.
Ambient IoT refers to a new class of low-cost, battery-free sensors that continuously communicate a stream of contextual data – location, temperature, humidity, light exposure, and more – using energy harvested from their surroundings. These tiny, wireless tags can be attached to nearly anything – from food crates to equipment trolleys to plastic pallets and customer packages – turning ordinary assets into real-time sources of operational intelligence.
The result is a system where every object contributes to the flow. Inventory doesn’t just sit in silence; it signals. Equipment doesn’t disappear without a trace; it tells you where it went. Shipments don’t go dark between scans; they stay lit, providing live updates throughout their journey.
Preventing mistakes before they spread
Imagine a simple metal cart used to transport goods between warehouses and retail locations. On any given day, hundreds of these carts are loaded, dispatched, and received across dozens of sites. But when even a small number go missing – left behind, misplaced, or hoarded – they create a bottleneck. There are fewer carts available for the next shift. The warehouse can’t load its full quota. Staff scramble to compensate. Operations slow down. And the business is forced to over-purchase equipment or rent extra storage space just to compensate for the shortfall.
Loss of reusable transport items like carts and totes is a well-documented challenge. Industry estimates suggest that up to 20% of reusable assets are lost annually, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in replacement costs – and an even greater impact from the operational friction these losses cause.
Now imagine that every cart could tell you exactly where it is, at all times. No manual checks, no guesswork, no scavenger hunts. That’s the promise of Ambient IoT. More than preventing the initial loss – it prevents the cascading disruptions that follow.
From costly waste to regulatory risk: The case for smarter cold chains
The same principle applies to perishable inventory. If frozen seafood is exposed to warm air, or fresh produce sits too long under heat or light, it can spoil before ever reaching the shelf. These failures often go undetected until it’s too late – when complaints surface or waste reports accumulate. With real-time condition sensing, however, those same items can alert operators the moment something deviates from the norm, allowing them to intervene, reroute, or discard before a minor issue becomes a systemic failure.
The USDA estimates that 30-40% of the U.S. food supply is wasted each year, translating to more than 130 billion pounds of food and over $160 billion in losses. Globally, cold chain lapses contribute significantly to food spoilage, particularly in developing markets where infrastructure is less reliable. These losses reflect operational breakdowns born from an absence of persistent, case-level insight.
Beyond the financial and environmental impacts, there’s now a growing regulatory imperative. Under the FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Rule 204, companies handling high-risk foods will soon be required to maintain more granular, real-time traceability records, including data on storage temperatures, transit conditions, and handling events.
These new requirements, set to take effect in 2028, are poised to reshape cold chain compliance. Ambient IoT offers a scalable solution – delivering the continuous, item-level sensing needed to meet FSMA mandates while unlocking significant cost savings and operational resilience.
Feeding the software systems that run global commerce
Ambient IoT also integrates seamlessly with existing supply chain technologies. It doesn’t require a rip-and-replace approach. Barcodes provide human-readable clarity. RFID enables fast reads at fixed gates. Ambient IoT fills the gap between them, offering persistent, case-level awareness between Points A and B, where many of today’s biggest losses actually occur.
This Ambient IoT data also feeds directly into ERP systems, making legacy platforms smarter and more responsive. With richer “state data” flowing in – from light levels to dwell times to environmental changes – systems that once relied on snapshots can now operate with a live feed of what’s really happening on the ground. And that’s the shift: from systems that react, to systems that respond.
A clearer path forward
Inventory viscosity may not be a term many operators use yet. But they feel its absence every day – in the late trucks, the missing crates, the spoiled stock, and the frantic workarounds.
Ambient IoT enables inventory viscosity by identifying points of resistance across the supply chain early before they solidify. It gives operators the real-time intelligence they need to make smarter, faster decisions – without having to wait for a scan, a spreadsheet, or a quarterly review. Products, equipment, and data are able to flow more freely through the system, minimizing friction and delay.
What Ambient IoT offers is not just another data stream – it’s a way to turn all that silent friction into signal. To illuminate the blind spots. To make the supply chain move – with less friction and greater precision.
Because when every object can speak, nothing needs to stall.
