How Vaillant boosted logistics cart utilisation by 5% and paid back its IoT investment in just over a year

At the Nantes facility, internal logistics form an essential link in industrial performance: they determine workstation supply, the smooth flow of transfers, and ultimately the ability to maintain production rates. The factory, which produced approximately 166,000 boilers and heat pumps last year across 48,000 m², relies daily on a large fleet of carts and logistics trains, deployed at every stage of the process (sheet metal part manufacturing, painting, assembly, line delivery).

Fleet management relied on inventories and tracking spreadsheets. As flows intensified, the challenge became consolidating visibility over actual equipment availability in order to locate carts more quickly, objectively assess their usage, and anticipate bottlenecks.

To quickly improve fleet management, Vaillant sought a solution capable of providing immediately actionable data without complicating the existing infrastructure. Sensolus was selected for a highly targeted pilot: around forty trackers installed on carts and logistics trains, testing Bluetooth technology to validate the relevance of flow data under real-world conditions.

According to Vaillant, the solution stood out for its ease of deployment, the absence of heavy infrastructure, and a platform accessible to field teams. It enabled a factual reading of equipment usage within just a few weeks and improved location accuracy within the factory.

Less than a month after the pilot launch, the first measured results confirmed the operational value of IoT for managing flows. The decision was then made to roll out the equipment across the entire fleet.

In 2025, Vaillant equipped its entire fleet (1,600 carts and logistics trains) over a short and controlled period. The tracking data is used to structure a flow mapping (Value Stream Mapping – VSM) and drive operational decisions based on measurements rather than estimates.

In practice, teams have access to a dynamic inventory: each cart is identified, located and tracked within the factory. When an operator needs a piece of equipment, they can find it via the platform whereas previously, the search could consume valuable time and cause disruptions.

The first tangible benefit concerns fleet management. The data enabled the rapid identification of underused or unused equipment. Some carts were redirected to a storage provider, avoiding additional purchases to meet future needs.

Vaillant estimates this optimisation at approximately €30,000 in savings on a single project, by avoiding the purchase of new carts.

Tracking also helps anticipate bottlenecks: areas likely to run short of carts are identified in advance via alerts, limiting shortage situations and logistical disruptions. Beyond productivity gains, the company highlights an improvement in day-to-day team experience, by reducing the share of unexpected events caused by searching for equipment.

Economically, Vaillant reports a return on investment of approximately 1.2 years, already achieved. The company has also observed an improvement in utilisation rates.

With a data history now available, teams are going further than simple location tracking. The platform is used to structure both corrective and preventive maintenance: identifying carts requiring repair, directing them to dedicated zones, and scheduling interventions.

The approach also aims to automate and improve the reliability of previously manual tasks, and to identify flow optimisations that would not be visible without measured data.

For Sensolus, this collaboration illustrates a fundamental trend in industry: the digitalisation of non-motorised assets — carts, transport supports, containers — is becoming a direct lever for operational efficiency, as soon as data is accessible and actionable by field teams.