SECTOR REPORT
FOOD SAFETY
IOT-ENABLED PALLETS FOR TRACKING PERISHABLE GOODS T
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FOOD LOGISTICS | AUGUST 2021
FLOG0821_42-43_[SR]FoodSafety.indd 42
Pallet Alliance
The industry has long recognized that automatically logging and reporting temperature, location and other environmental conditions at the pallet level would be an ideal solution and provide the most accurate readings of product temperature at all locations within a trailer. Unfortunately, providing this capability in a scalable, reliable, cost-effective and easy-to-use way has proven elusive. Even with recent spikes in hardwood pricing and the downstream effects of increased prices, reusable wooden pallets remain the best obtainable priceper-shipment for producers. However, current major pool providers do not provide cost-effective, reliable, fully instrumented pallets, and the recycled wooden pallet market is unlikely to offer a standardized instrumented pallet. One possible ADVERTISER INDEX solution is affixing InADVERTISER ......................................................................................................PAGE ternet of Things (IoT) BM2 Freight Services .......................................................................................................11 devices to pallets priCJ Logistics ........................................................................................................................5 or to shipment. DeControlant .........................................................................................................................29 vices typically come DSW Distribution ..............................................................................................................26 already connected to a platform to log Great Dane Trailers Inc. ....................................................................................................46 and report data, but H&M Bay Inc.....................................................................................................................40 adds significant costs IFDA ..................................................................................................................................33 and requires multiple Isuzu Truck .......................................................................................................................17 steps to provide shipLiberty Cold ......................................................................................................................26 ment visibility. But, if a customer manually Lily Transportation ............................................................................................................39 attaches the device Mack Truck Corporation ...................................................................................................45 to a pallet, pairs that MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company ...........................................................................2 device with a shipPSSI..................................................................................................................................43 ment, associates that Q Products and Services....................................................................................................7 shipment with their Red Classic ........................................................................................................................9 customer account, most will continue RLS LOGISTICS ...............................................................................................................23 to do without IoT Romark Logistics..............................................................................................................25 tracking at the pallet Syfan Logistics .................................................................................................................31 level. Thermo King .....................................................................................................................13 When measureTranservice Logistics, Inc. ................................................................................................39 ment is conducted across a shipper’s Utility Trailers ....................................................................................................................19 entire supply chain, Witron ...............................................................................................................................27 not only are logis-
o support ensure quality transportation of temperature-sensitive goods in the food and beverage industry, the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) introduced requirements for refrigerated trucking operators to supply proof of temperature compliance, when requested, on a load-by-load basis. Unfortunately, this creates a burden on carriers and receiving warehouses to validate these shipments. These data needs can be measured with devices on trucks or on freight. However, the haphazard way in which the data is collected on logged devices makes it difficult to operationalize at scale. Additionally, the need to manually locate and recover data logging devices adds labor, delays and additional failure points into compliance efforts.
Affixing IoT devices to pallets prior to shipment is one way carriers can track temperature of products along the way.
tics managers able to monitor individual shipments, but executives also receive the high-level aggregations and KPIs needed to optimize large operations. With temperatures measured and automatically validated on a per-truckload basis, consignees know before a truck arrives at a dock that the temperature has been maintained, dramatically reducing the work of arrival-time verifications. Any solution that is deployed must be simple, cost-effective and scalable. It must also be capable of integrating with a wide range of shippers’ and suppliers’ enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. IoT-enabled pallets bring together the latest in sustainable plastic pallets and IoT to provide a scalable, easy-to-use means to achieve budgetary, timing and environmental constraints across their supply chain. Go to foodl.me/56wcp9 to read the remainder of this expert column.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR MIKE JONES principal, Pallet Alliance
www.foodlogistics.com
8/2/21 12:51 PM
