Controlling Risk In The Temperature Controlled Supply Chain

By Author: sanders poter
Total Articles: 6
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Delays in product shipments or raw materials not only cause reputational issues, but if your packaging and carriers are not able to monitor or regulate critical temperature ranges, product quality will suffer.
In most cases data should be applied early in the supply chain planning process. Weather conditions, package testing data, live shipment monitoring and prequalified transport modes should all be used to determine the right balance between shipment cost and quality. This data allows for pre-planning and contingencies.

There are multiple factors used to develop strategies for raw material purchasing, production scheduling, and end product distribution. Typically you can control the temperature of the payload by optimizing the primary and secondary packaging, configuration, and refrigerant. In addition, the distribution and storage practices of the product should be evaluated determine if hold temperatures are adequate for lower-cost shipping methods. Cooperation between logistics and package engineering requires tradeoffs and testing to assure that balance between cost and quality and it is not uncommon to ...
... bring in the services of a third party to support this balance.

The third party will help mitigate the risk by conducting an audit of your packaging and transport modes. The audit may include evaluating your distribution practices, providing temperature mapping data and qualifying and validating current methodology.

Regardless of who does your evaluation, it is important to know where the risks are and how you plan to mitigate them. Do you plan your packaging and transport modes around weather conditions? What modes of transportation and containers can help mitigate risk, and how do you plan for compliance regulations related to temperature? Let's start by looking at where the majority of risk occurs.

Where does the risk occur?
The most common challenges are in the transfer of freight between transport modes (hand off from shipper to consignee) and last mile deliveries. They are most at risk based on amount of time exposed. The table below summarizes some of the conditions and solutions for addressing freight transfer and last mile deliveries:

Where risk occurs

Loading/pickup:
Temperature conditions on the dock/loading area. During the last mile, a properly qualified refrigerated truck may not be available.

Solutions:
Truck movement can be controlled by using a properly qualified refrigerated truck.

Processing (Export or loading aircraft):
May include open inspections, extended wait times, or unloading shipment can expose it to weather.

Solutions:
Can often be reduced with prior planning & coordination

Unloading/delivery:
For the last mile, this may often involve exposure to weather or worse, left inside a mailbox or other unprotected container for several hours.

Solutions:
Processes & transport systems can be designed to reduce this risk.

Flight details:
Consider route, temperature & duration of transport when determining the container system.

Solutions:
Use a qualified packaging system or temperature controlled containers.

It's not just exposure, it’s the amount of time exposed

In the pharmaceutical market, when looking to regulate that critical ambient temperature range between 15° and 25° C or refrigerated products at 2° and 8° C, it is important to understand that it is not only that the product was exposed passed a specific threshold, but the length of time it was exposed. You can plan for this by designing packaging or transport systems to eliminate or significantly reduce the risks to the freight at each stage. You can also develop contingency plans to effectively address risk areas where design is unable to sufficiently remove it.

This content has been taken from http://www.amazines.com/article_detail_new.cfm/5842388?articleid=5842388

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