Remote Monitoring: Prevent Damage In Shipping
Reactive shippers learn about damaged goods and remediate the problem, discounting or discarding damaged merchandise. Proactive shippers, however, learn about issues early, in time to prevent – or at least minimize – damage.
The answer matters, and can reverberate throughout the supply chain.
Reactive shippers learn about damaged goods and remediate the problem, discounting or discarding damaged merchandise. Proactive shippers, however, learn about issues early, in time to prevent – or at least minimize – damage. That maximizes current product value and can help prevent similar problems in the future, thereby saving money, time, and opportunities. Sometimes, a proactive approach can even save lives.
Healthcare is a good example. Therapeutics exposed to temperature fluctuations may lose potency or become harmful. If unnoticed temperature excursions compromise clinical trials, those medications may not be commercialized. Consequently, patients lose innovative medicines and companies lose opportunities.
In the food industry, temperature excursions may reduce shelf life or trigger massive recalls. Fish, seafood, meats, and poultry are obvious examples of temperature-sensitive products, but even produce can be harmed by too hot or too cold temperatures.
Remote environmental monitoring supports a proactive approach to shipping, providing the real-time information and documentation shippers and regulators need to ensure product safety and maximize product shelf life. Remote technologies can monitor geo-location, reefer unit run times, door status, temperature, and humidity, as also enable geo-fencing.
Geo-fencing places a virtual perimeter around a location or transportation route. It works with geo-location technology to pinpoint the exact location of goods, and also the site of thermal excursions. Therefore, with geo-fencing and remote environmental monitoring, shippers can know when a carrier stops, changes routes, or opens the cargo door, or when a temperature-sensitive product leaves a protected area.
Proactive shippers can use the capabilities of remote monitoring to their advantage, mining data to create a highly granular view of their supply chain as well as gaining immediate, real-time insight on current shipments. Consequently, they can intervene before incidents escalate, thereby saving products, time, and money.