Mastering Returnable Transport Items (RTIs) in Peak Seasons
How Smart Tracking Boosts Efficiency
in Modern Supply Chains
Peak seasons push global supply chains to their limits. As order volumes spike and labor availability tightens, Returnable Transport Items (RTIs)—pallets, roll cages, totes, crates, and reusable containers—become the silent constraint that dictates throughput, service performance, and cost-to-serve.
Yet most organizations still manage RTIs with far less discipline than finished goods or inventory. The result is consistent across regions and industries: 10–15% asset loss annually, equating to billions in global replacement costs, operational slowdowns, and growing sustainability pressures.
In This Article, You Will Learn How to:
Identify where RTI losses, imbalances, and dwell time undermine peak-season throughput
Quantify the operational and
financial impact of 10–15%
annual RTI loss
Decide when RFID
or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
delivers the highest value
Use real-time RTI visibility to
improve asset availability, cycle time
stability, and planning accuracy
Scale RTI tracking across sites,
partners, and regions without
adding manual workload
The RTI Challenge: Hidden Assets, Visible Operational Risk
RTIs are essential to high-velocity logistics operations, but a lack of traceability turns them into a blind spot. Millions of reusable assets circulate daily with limited documentation, inconsistent accountability, and no global source of truth.
Key Operational Pain Points
Loss and theft
drive avoidable capital expenditure
and emergency procurement
Idle assets and imbalances
create shortages at high-throughput
sites while excess accumulates elsewhere
Manual tracking processes
slow operations, introduce error,
and limit real-time responsiveness
Partner disputes
over ownership and responsibility
consume time and damage relationships
Fragmented data
prevents network-wide
optimization of RTI flows
Peak Season Amplifies the Impact
During peak seasons, small inefficiencies scale into systemwide challenges:
RTIs are essential to daily operations, but during peak periods their absence can cripple
throughput.
Key challenges include:
- Loss and shrinkage: 10–15% of RTIs disappear annually, representing millions in replacement cost.
- Imbalance across the network: Some sites experience surpluses while others run empty. Manual processes: barcode scans, spreadsheets, and paper-based reconciliation cannot handle peak volumes.
- Increased dwell time: RTIs pile up at customer locations or transport hubs.
- Operational downtime: A shortage of RTIs leads to slower fulfillment and increased labor strain.
During events such as Black Friday, holiday periods, or major promotions, a lack of available RTIs can
halt loading lines, delay shipments, and reduce fulfillment performance.
The message for supply chain executives is clear: RTIs are strategic assets, and their mismanagement imposes operational, financial, and sustainability risk that can no longer be ignored.
Smart RTI Management: The Technology Edge
Digitally enabled RTI visibility reframes reusable assets as an intelligent, trackable infrastructure powering the modern supply chain.
RFID + BLE: The Backbone of Real-Time RTI Visibility
Digital tracking requires two foundational capabilities:
Identification
Every asset needs a unique, durable identifier—RFID, BLE, or barcode—that links it to ownership, utilization history, and condition.
Localization
Infrastructure such as RFID gateways, BLE beacons, mobile scanners, and readers capture movement throughout the network.
When to Use RFID vs BLE
| Feature | RFID (Passive UHF) | BLE |
| Read range | Up to ~20 m | 200 m |
| Reading interval | Event / checkpoint-based | Continuous |
| Battery | No | Yes |
| Unit cost | Low | High |
| Infrastructure cost | High | Low |
| Ideal environments | Warehouses, dock doors, conveyors | Yards, customer sites, mobile flow |
Tagging best practices for peak-performance
Tag placement and durability are crucial during peak
volumes when RTIs move faster and with less manual
oversight. High performance tagging ensures reliable
reads even at high speeds and under heavy handling.
Recommendations:
- Use on-metal tags for metal RTIs such as roll cages or containers.
- Ensure tags are positioned in locations that minimize the exposure to mechanical impacts.
- Ensure tags are visible to portals and not obstructed by loads.
- For large RTIs, apply dual tagging for redundancy. Follow GS1 encoding standards for universal compatibility.
- Validate tags against wash cycles, freezing, exposure, or abrasion.
Data-Driven Operations
- Higher asset turns
- Balanced inventories across regions
- Lower dwell time and shrink
- Predictive loss prevention
- Improved cycle-time stability
- AI-driven planning and exception management
Seamless Enterprise Integration
Lyngsoe LIVE Logistics™ connects directly to ERP, WMS, and TMS environments, enabling RTI intelligence to drive planning, billing, inventory accuracy, and compliance.
Success Stories and ROI
Leading supply chain networks across food logistics, manufacturing, and horticulture have executed digital RTI programs with measurable results. For global operations, these gains translate into millions in annual savings, greater resilience, and a substantially smaller environmental footprint.
Bringing Real-Time Control to One of the Nordics’ Largest RTI Fleets
About Posti
Posti is Finland’s national postal and logistics provider, employing more than 15,000 people and operating seven major logistics centers and over 30 transportation terminals across the country. Every day, Posti depends on a circulation of more than 100,000 reusable roll cages and parcel containers to keep e-commerce and mail distribution running at scale.
The Challenge
Despite its high level of automation, Posti had no real-time visibility of its RTI fleet. Roll cages frequently accumulated in low-throughput locations while high-volume hubs faced shortages, forcing unnecessary transport, manual searching, and emergency procurement. Manual barcode scanning and spreadsheets could not keep pace with daily movements across dozens of terminals, making it difficult to understand asset rotation, prevent loss, or resolve disputes with partners. During peak periods, these issues intensified—slowing outbound flows, delaying loading operations, and increasing labor strain.
The Results
After deploying a BLE+RFID-based RTI tracking solution across terminals and distribution centers,
Posti gained a shared, accurate view of its entire RTI pool.
Key outcomes included:
Reduced RTI shrinkage, supported by real-time accountability
Lower manual workload, as automated reads replaced routine scanning
More balanced RTI distribution, improving availability during peak demand
In addition, the consistent digital audit trail strengthened collaboration with partners, reduced
operational friction, and improved planning accuracy across Posti’s nationwide network. The case
highlights how a large logistics operator can unlock measurable value by transforming RTIs from a
blind spot into a controlled, data-driven asset base.
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Master RTI visibility ahead of your next peak season.
Explore implementation strategies with industry experts.
From Insight to Action - Three Strategic Priorities for Supply Chain Leaders:
1 - Elevate RTIs to Core Operational Assets
Treat them as capital infrastructure critical to throughput, customer service, and financial performance.
2 - Digitize the RTI Lifecycle
Tag - Track - Analyze - Optimize
Make RTI visibility a scalable digital process integrated across systems and partners
3 - Collaborate across the value chain
Align between suppliers, carriers, and retailers blind spots and strengthens accountability.
The Beontag × Lyngsoe Systems Advantage
Global supply chains require solutions that scale across regions, partners, and operational models. Together, Beontag and Lyngsoe Systems deliver:
- Worldwide RFID/BLE expertise and manufacturing capacity
- Proven high-volume tracking platforms (Lyngsoe LIVE Logistics™)
- Modular solutions tailored to rental, pooling, deposit, and buy-back models
- Strong sustainability impact through circular logistics enablement
- End-to-end visibility across the full RTI lifecycle
This joint value proposition ensures enterprises can control, optimize, and future-proof their RTI operations—at scale.
Beontag and Lyngsoe Systems combine global technology leadership with advanced logistics visibility platforms, delivering end-to-end transparency from production to point of use. Together, we help supply chain organizations “make every RTI count” during peak demand—and every day in between.
Want to get in touch?
Whether you have a question or want a demo, we’re ready to talk.
How can real-time RTI tracking reduce capacity shortages during peak seasons?
Real-time RTI tracking provides continuous visibility into where RTIs are located, how many are available, and how they move across the supply chain. This enables proactive redistribution of assets before shortages occur. Instead of compensating for peak demand by purchasing or renting additional RTIs, organizations can optimize the utilization of their existing RTI fleet. The result is improved capacity planning, fewer operational disruptions, and a more resilient logistics operation during peak periods.
How does RTI tracking help reduce RTI loss and replacement costs during peak load?
Automated RTI tracking significantly reduces asset loss by creating transparency and accountability across the entire logistics network. During peak load, when manual processes are under pressure, real-time tracking ensures consistent data capture without relying on human intervention. This makes it easier to identify where RTIs are delayed, misplaced, or lost, and to take corrective action quickly. By minimizing losses and improving asset recovery, companies can substantially reduce replacement costs and protect operational margins.
Can RTI tracking be implemented without disrupting logistics operations during peak seasons?
Yes. Modern RTI tracking solutions are designed for scalable and phased implementation. They can be integrated with existing systems such as WMS, TMS, and ERP platforms without requiring major process changes. Organizations can start by tracking critical RTI flows or high-impact locations and expand gradually. By automating data capture rather than adding manual tasks, RTI tracking can actually reduce operational workload during peak seasons instead of disrupting daily operations.
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