Cold chain monitoring in times of IoT

Many people refer to “Cold chain” primarily as delivery of goods and the environment in which they were transported.
They even tend to focus mostly on only one attribute: “Temperature”.

• Were the goods properly cooled during their journey?
• Was the temperature low enough but not too low to damage the goods?
• Were the goods un/loaded quickly enough without interruptions of the cold chain?

These are all crucial questions and we should definitely continue asking them. However, what about the remaining information which might influence the buy / don’t buy decision of a consumer:

• When were the goods produced or picked?
• Were the goods specially treated to be sustainable in case of a long journey?
• Where are the goods coming from and what path did they took to arrive here?
• How long were the goods stored and at what locations?

Or how about the information which focuses on the business side to ensure efficient and economical operations:

There is so much more information to collect than just temperature: on the one hand, information that is enriched and shared with consumers to increase confidence in the product itself and on the other hand, information that highlights underperforming processes (such as delivery routes) and enables companies to create new and better ways of monetization.

Recording and managing all attributes from the complete cold chain (end to end) is not an easy venture. The data must be provided by multiple independent companies, recorded by dozens of employees and on top of that also monitored, summarized and reported by a dedicated team.

With the masses of goods shipped and delivered daily across the globe, recording all the mentioned data in a traditional way creates a monumental task which is everything but economical and efficient. It is therefore often neglected because it’s cheaper and easier to order a replacement part instead of investigating hours to determine where the process has failed.

But it does not need to be like that. Modern IoT sensors combined with Coiote IoT Data Orchestration can provide all of the mentioned benefits including full insight into every single process of the whole cold chain (end to end) with a fraction of the usual efforts and cost!

Coiote IoT Data Orchestration enables millions of IoT sensors to operate fully automated and measure all aspects of a modern cold chain resulting in millions of recorded datasets and unique values. The collected data is further aggregated and enriched to be used for monitoring and status determination, including automated notifications and alarms.

Coiote IoT Data Orchestration lifts the restrictions of capsulated businesses and enables companies to work with each other, share required data and benefit together in operating an efficient and trustworthy cold chain.

For further information on how this can be realised and how you can benefit from Coiote IoT Data Orchestration platform today take a look at this whitepaper which describes in detail the requirements and benefits of setting up a cold chain that is ready for the next level of interactions.