GPS Tracking and Cold Chain Monitoring Devices For Tracking and Monitoring Temperature-Sensitive Vehicles and Cargo
One of the difficulties that come with managing a cold chain supply chain is ensuring that you are not only keeping the temperature sensitive items safe but you’re also supposed to closely follow regulations. These devices are essential because you need to ensure that you are in complete compliance with these rules. By reading on, you can see exactly why you need to get the right GPS tracking and cold chain monitoring devices for your business.
Importance of Investing in the Right Cold Chain Monitoring Devices
Globalization has been great for logistics businesses, allowing them a greater reach for their market. However, this also brings a great deal of challenges as well. One of the greatest of these challenges is ensuring that these items stay at the ideal temperatures during its transportation to keep them safe. You need the proper planning to make sure that these items arrive in a timely fashion and while staying in compliance of safety rules for those items. For instance, medicines and foods must be kept at a specific temperature.
How successful your business is will depend on how good your cold chain monitoring system is. This means having the latest technology in GPS tracking and temperature data loggers that can help you with cold chain monitoring. Having IoT devices that are specially made for cold chain monitoring is essential to your success. The reason that this industry is taking off the way it has is because of the advanced technology now available. If you want your business to keep up with the competition, or even surpass them, it’s crucial to get the best and right devices for your business.
There is plenty that can go wrong when managing cold chain, including:
- Flooding
- Human error, such as leaving the door open in the freezer or hitting the thermostat
- Power failure
- Alarm events that take place outside of normal work hours
- Other failure of the freezer/refrigerator system
It’s also important to discuss the different regulations that companies who deal with cold chain need to abide by. First of all, there is the FSMA (FDA Food Safety Modernization Act). The goal of this act is to be proactive in preventing contamination rather than just responding to it. It requires the food and beverage manufacturers to monitor and document the history of temperature for their products to ensure they are safe.
Another important regulation is the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points), which is an industry-standard that cold chain businesses strictly adhere to. This is another way to prevent any issues that could contaminate or destroy items throughout the entire cold chain links. Knowing which regulations you need to stick to can be very helpful in helping you pick the right devices for your needs.
Features to Look for in Cold Chain Monitoring Devices
There are several features that you should be looking for in your cold chain monitoring devices. This section will take a closer look at some of these more important features that you will need.
GPS Tracking
It can be especially important to have IoT GPS tracking, which helps offer the ability to get real-time tracking information on where your cold chain items are. This can help you recover the items that you need in your warehouse or see where the driver is with these items to monitor and report this information.
Sensor Monitoring
Real-time sensor monitoring is essential because it tracks not only the temperature in the space, but also other important things like the humidity and moisture. These are things that can have a negative impact on those temperature-sensitive items. This allows you to catch any problems quickly to avoid any items being damaged.
Geofencing
The goal of geofencing is to ensure that your cold chain vehicles or cargo don’t leave a set perimeter. If they do, you can act quickly to see what the problem is.
Easy to Install
You don’t want a lot of complications when it comes to installing your new data loggers. Getting a device that requires no crazy installation process can be the best approach for your needs.
How Cold Chain Devices Help Businesses
There are several ways that cold chain devices can really benefit your business. One way is by offering real-time tracking for not just the GPS but also the temperature and humidity as well. You will get an alert if the truck or area of the warehouse are at the temperature that they need to be, allowing you to catch a major problem quickly. This allows you to intervene when necessary to minimize your losses.
You can also get important analytics that will help you improve your cold chain management. You can use the data to determine if your items are getting to where they need to using the most efficient route. Temperature-sensitive items really require a great deal of care, so you need to be sure that the items spend less time during the transportation process and get where they need to quickly.
These are also essential because it ensures that you are in compliance with all the regulations regarding cold chain management. This can be a heavily regulated industry because of the temperature-sensitive items that you are transporting. For instance, certain medicines will spoil if they aren’t kept at the right temperature. This can be life or death in some situations. Food also requires specific temperatures when being transported and stored, otherwise people can potentially get sick. If you want to make sure that these items are safe and you are in compliance with any applicable laws, cold chain devices are essential.
Conclusion
Your business depends on having the right GPS tracking and cold chain monitoring devices. You should consider what solutions you are looking for, such as do you need to monitor your temperature sensitive vehicles or are you monitoring the cargo in your warehouse? There are a lot of reasons why you need these devices, so make sure that you invest in the right options for your business’ needs.