In global manufacturing and commerce, raw materials, components and final goods travel long distances before arriving at the final destination.
More than often, the value – direct or indirect – of any particular item warrants the cost associated with monitoring its condition – like detecting shocks or recording temperatures in a cold-chain for food storage and transportation – and track it all along the logistics chain.
Tracking relies mostly GNSS location technologies or wireless communications triangulation positioning, while the continuous monitoring of storage conditions is based on an array of sensors depending on the physical variables involved.
STM offers a lot of possible solutions: MCU, MPU, NFC, TAG, GPS, WireLess, NB-IoT, MEMS (sensors), etc.
See here for a complete STM offer presentation.