Airfreight cold chain temperature seamlessly monitored

TORONTO, Ont. — Kuehne + Nagel in cooperation with KLM Cargo reports successfully retrieving and uploading to the Internet temperature data for a pharmaceutical airfreight shipment.

This ability to seamlessly monitor a consignment’s en-route temperature marks a significant step in the development of innovative, Cargo 2000-based cold chain solutions, according to the 3PL.

The transport of pharmaceutical goods places high demands on a logistics provider, as product-specific climatic conditions have to be assured throughout the process chain. In the past, the en-route retrieval and online display of data from a temperature recording device stored inside an airfreight cool container was not possible.

Early this year, Kuehne + Nagel together with KLM Cargo became the first logistics provider to successfully read and transmit temperature data for a pharmaceutical airfreight shipment throughout transportation. A consigment of cholera vaccines from Swedish manufacturer SBL Vaccines to a major pharmaceutical company in Canada served as test shipment. The sensitive products needed to be kept within a specified temperature range of two to eight degrees Celsius.

Within the scope of the project, Kuehne + Nagel equipped two airfreight cool containers with special temperature recording devices. Even after closing and sealing the containers the logged data could be retrieved and transmitted to an Internet platform by means of a laptop running special software.

At around ten Cargo 2000 checkpoints, from Stockholm/Sweden via Amsterdam/The Netherlands and Toronto/Canada to the consignee, the shipment’s status was checked, and logged data was retrieved from the temperature recorders and evaluated. All parties involved in the project were able to monitor the continuous temperature curve via the Internet. In the event of any deviation it is thus possible to proactively take corrective measures.