How to Track Pallets Across Warehouses with BLE

Every year, 5-10% of your pallet pool vanishes. Not stolen, just lost. They’re sitting in a corner of Warehouse B while your team in Warehouse A spends 45 minutes searching, delaying a shipment that was supposed to leave an hour ago. Leading pallet manufacturers cite this shrinkage rate as their standard annual replacement assumption. They’ve built their business model around your pallets disappearing.

The frustrating part? Those pallets aren’t gone. They’re in your network somewhere; you just can’t see them. The gap isn’t physical, it’s informational. And it widens every time a pallet moves between locations without consistent visibility.

BLE-based pallet tracking solves this, but until recently, it came with a catch: you needed gateway infrastructure at every warehouse. That meant hardware procurement, installation, maintenance, and IT coordination across every site. For organizations managing 10+ locations, the infrastructure investment often killed the business case before it started.

That constraint no longer applies. Here’s how to implement pallet tracking across your warehouse network using modern BLE approaches that work without per-site infrastructure.

Why BLE Beats the Alternatives for Multi-Warehouse Tracking

Three technologies compete for warehouse asset tracking: RFID, GPS, and BLE. Each has a role, but for pallet-level tracking across multiple indoor locations, BLE wins on the metrics that matter.

RFID requires line-of-sight readers and portal installations. Tags are cheap ($0.10-0.50 for passive), but infrastructure costs multiply across locations. You’re also limited to checkpoint-based visibility: you know when a pallet passed a reader, not where it is now.

GPS doesn’t work indoors. Full stop. Pallets spend 95% of their time inside warehouses where GPS signals can’t penetrate.

BLE hits the sweet spot: tags cost $5-25 depending on form factor and battery life, provide 30-100 meter range depending on environment and transmission power, and battery life spans 1-5 years based on broadcast frequency (a tag transmitting every 2 seconds will drain faster than one broadcasting every 30 seconds). Modern BLE tags work without line-of-sight and provide continuous location data rather than checkpoint-only visibility.

The traditional BLE limitation, needing Bluetooth gateways installed throughout each facility, is what kept many organizations on the sidelines. But cloud-based BLE networks now use existing Bluetooth-enabled devices (smartphones, tablets, existing infrastructure) to provide coverage without dedicated hardware deployment.

Prerequisites Before Implementation

Before ordering tags, establish the foundation that determines whether your implementation succeeds or struggles.

Audit your pallet inventory and flow patterns. How many pallets do you actively manage? What’s the typical dwell time at each location? Which routes see the highest volume? This data shapes your tag quantity, battery life requirements, and priority locations.

Document inter-warehouse transfer protocols. Map every handoff point where visibility currently breaks down. Who owns the pallet during transit? What triggers a transfer record in your current systems? Where do discrepancies typically surface?

Identify integration requirements. List every system that needs pallet location data: WMS for inventory accuracy, ERP for financial tracking, TMS for shipment visibility. Determine which integrations are must-haves for launch versus phase-two additions.

Define success metrics with specific targets. “Improved visibility” isn’t a metric. “Reduce shrinkage from 7% to 2% within 12 months” is. “Cut average pallet search time from 35 minutes to under 5 minutes” is. These targets determine your ROI calculation and implementation priorities.

Step-by-Step Implementation Guide

Step 1: Select and Deploy BLE Tags

Pallet environments demand rugged tags. Look for IP67-rated housings (dust-tight and waterproof to 1 meter immersion), operating temperature ranges matching your warehouse conditions (-20°C to 60°C covers most scenarios), and mounting options that survive forklift handling.

Form factor considerations:

• Bolt-mount tags for permanent pallet pools
• Adhesive industrial tags for mixed or returnable pallets
• Hang tags for temporary tracking during specific campaigns

Plan tag quantity at 110% of your active pallet count. You’ll have units in repair, transit to new locations, or serving as replacements. Establish a tagging protocol that specifies where on the pallet the tag mounts (consistency enables accurate location algorithms) and who owns the tagging responsibility at each location.

Register each tag to its pallet ID in your tracking system before deployment. This asset registration step is non-negotiable; a tag without an associated asset record is just an expensive piece of plastic.

Step 2: Connect to a Global BLE Network

This is where modern implementations diverge from traditional approaches. Instead of deploying and maintaining gateway hardware at each warehouse, cloud-based BLE networks provide coverage by using the billions of Bluetooth-enabled devices already in circulation.

Here’s how it works: your BLE tags broadcast their identifier signals. Any nearby smartphone, tablet, or Bluetooth-enabled device participating in the network (with user permission) can detect that broadcast and relay the location data to the cloud. The network triangulates position based on which devices detected the signal and their known locations.

Networks like Hubble provide global BLE coverage across any warehouse location, eliminating the need to install and maintain gateways at each site. You gain immediate multi-site coverage, including third-party logistics facilities and customer locations, without hardware deployment or ongoing infrastructure management.

This approach fundamentally changes the business case. Instead of calculating gateway costs times number of locations, you’re calculating tag costs plus network subscription. For organizations with 5+ warehouses, the infrastructure savings alone often justify the switch.

Step 3: Standardize Handoff Protocols

Technology enables visibility; protocols ensure it. Without consistent handoff procedures, you’ll have data gaps exactly where they hurt most: during transfers between locations.

Create transfer documentation standards:

• Origin scan requirement before any pallet leaves a facility
• In-transit status designation with expected arrival window
• Destination scan requirement within defined time of arrival (e.g., 2 hours)
• Exception flag for any pallet not scanned within expected window

Build exception handling workflows:

• Automatic alerts when pallets show unexpected location (arrived at wrong facility)
• Escalation path for pallets not scanned within 24 hours of expected arrival
• Clear ownership assignment for exception resolution at each location

Establish accountability frameworks:

• Site-level shrinkage metrics visible to all stakeholders
• Monthly reconciliation process with documented variance explanations
• Incentive alignment so each location benefits from accurate tracking

Step 4: Integrate with Existing Systems

Your tracking data only creates value when it flows into systems where decisions happen.

WMS integration enables real-time inventory accuracy. When a pallet arrives at Warehouse B, your WMS should reflect that location without manual updates. Prioritize bi-directional sync: the tracking system updates WMS with location, and WMS updates the tracking system when pallets are designated for specific orders.

ERP connection supports financial tracking of pallet assets and enables automated depreciation based on actual usage patterns rather than estimates.

TMS linkage provides shipment-level visibility. When a pallet loads onto an outbound truck, your TMS should automatically associate that pallet with the shipment record.

Evaluate network providers based on pre-built connectors for your specific systems. Custom API development is achievable but adds 2-4 months and significant cost to implementation timelines.

Measuring ROI and Business Impact

Build your business case around four primary ROI drivers:

Shrinkage reduction: If you’re currently experiencing 7% annual pallet loss and reduce that to 2%, calculate the replacement cost savings. For a 10,000-pallet pool at $25 per pallet, that’s $12,500 annual savings on replacement costs alone, before accounting for expedited shipping costs, production delays, or customer penalties from missing pallets.

Cycle count labor savings: Manual pallet counts typically require 15-30 minutes per pallet for search and verification. With real-time location data, cycle counts become verification exercises taking 2-3 minutes per pallet. For a 5,000-pallet annual count at $25/hour labor cost, the savings reach $15,000-20,000 annually.

Eliminated gateway infrastructure: Traditional BLE implementations require $500-2,000 per gateway plus installation and maintenance. A 10-warehouse deployment might need 5-15 gateways per location, totaling $25,000-300,000 in hardware alone. Cloud-based networks eliminate this line item entirely.

Faster exception resolution: When a shipment is delayed because a pallet can’t be found, what’s the cost? Expedited shipping to meet commitments? Customer penalties? Production line stoppages? Quantify your current exception frequency and average resolution cost.

Avoiding the Pitfalls That Derail Implementations

Inconsistent tagging compliance torpedoes more implementations than technology failures. The fix: make tagging effortless. Choose mounting methods that take under 30 seconds. Assign tagging responsibility to a specific role, not “everyone.” Track tagging compliance by location and address gaps immediately.

Integration complexity delays ROI realization. Don’t pursue perfect integration at launch. Prioritize the single integration that delivers the most value (usually WMS) and expand from there. Select networks with pre-built connectors for your specific platforms rather than assuming “we’ll figure out the API.”

Change management failures across sites create adoption gaps. Roll out in phases, starting with 2-3 locations before expanding. Assign a site champion at each location with clear KPI ownership. Celebrate early wins publicly to build momentum.

Building This Into Your Operations

BLE-based pallet tracking across multiple warehouses is no longer a massive infrastructure project. Modern cloud-based networks have removed the gateway barrier that historically made multi-site tracking prohibitively complex.

The implementation path is clear: select appropriate tags, connect to a network with coverage across your locations, standardize your handoff protocols, and integrate with your existing systems. Organizations completing this sequence typically see full ROI within 6-12 months, driven primarily by shrinkage reduction and eliminated infrastructure costs.

Your next step is specific: quantify your current pallet visibility gap. What’s your actual shrinkage rate? How much time does your team spend searching for assets? What do shipping delays cost when pallets can’t be located? Those numbers become your business case and your benchmark for measuring success.

Hubble’s satellite-connected BLE network provides pallet visibility across any warehouse location—no gateways required. See how it works →