6 Best Practices for Managing Cold Chain Logistics

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6 Best Practices for Managing Cold Chain Logistics

Transporting sensitive goods in the supply chain is attached to many challenges. This blog has a wealth of knowledge about the 6 best practices for managing cold chain logistics to help you gain insight into how food companies manage moving temperature-sensitive goods.

Cold chain Management has become more complex because of strict measures and the changing demand in the medical, food, and zones.   With more disposable income, the demand for temperature-sensitive goods, including fresh fruits, fish, and meat, has significantly increased. In cold logistics, small temperature variations can threaten the whole investment.  Nonetheless, temperature differences during movement of goods, malfunctioning of the refrigeration unit, and taking longer to load goods on the deck can because big headaches. How do organizations benefit from cold logistics management?   Let us first understand what a cold chain is and the 6 practices to manage it.

What is a cold Chain?

A cold chain refers to the practices that help manage temperature-sensitive products and materials. The cold chain helps maintain the quality and safety of perishable products from the origin to the end consumer. Types of items involved in this supply chain include agricultural produce, seafood, chemicals, pharmaceutical items, and frozen foods.  Also known as cold cargo, cold chain goods are highly perishable. For that reason, organizations use cold storage facilities to prevent losses.

 Why is the cold chain useful?

The cold chain helps keep temperature-sensitive products safe and retain their quality until they reach the final consumer.   Transporting these products under the wrong temperature can cause bruising, discoloring, microbial growth, and textual degradation. Nonetheless, maintaining the original quality perishable products means great customer satisfaction, increased demand, and health benefits to all consumers. A well-maintained cold chain also creates employment opportunities which positively impacts the economy. Let us now look at the practices for managing a cold supply chain.

Get The Right Personnel

 Cold chains require skilled personnel to effectively run.  With the right assets and Technology, the organization also needs to build a skilled team to get the best from the cold chain. Whether food or pharmaceutical products, organizations need to equip their logistic sector with skilled people in various perishable goods categories.  For that reason, building teams of various niches and giving them skills should always be on top of the list.   With the right specialists, moving cold chain goods at the right temperature requirements can be easy. Top logistics solutions providers like DHL trained over 3,000 healthcare and life sciences workforce to amplify the performance of their cold chain. 

Preparation for Shipment

  To effectively ship the cold chain cargo, the carriers should know the chemical or biographical traits of the items, the right temperature, and packaging requirements. Cold chain products are transported at certain temperature levels to maintain quality and safety when they reach the final consumer. For that reason, logistics partners need high-quality cooling systems.   For fresh produce, the carrier should maintain the humidity and hygiene to satisfy the end consumer with the right freshness.  Cold chain equipment like reefers should be precooled and steam cleaned before scheduling shipping to mitigate contamination and spoilage. Failure to prepare for shipment can result in truck driver detention charges and spoilage of goods because of delayed transportation to the final destination.

Keep Things Cold in The Chain

Modern cold chain technology provides a standard temperature that can preserve various cold chain cargo.  Integrating devices boasting this Technology allows safekeeping cryogenic, deep-frozen, frozen, chilled, and room temperature goods. However, to safely move these goods in the chain, you need to maintain a certain temperature range. While temperatures are the point of focus in this chain, logistics partners also need to assess the weather before moving goods from one point to another.  Most people may prefer reefers for transportation because they can adapt to various climatic changes. In other cases, fruits may ripen while in transit. To prevent this, you can wrap the items in polythene bags that prevent the penetration of gas. Like other supply chains, the performance of the cold chain can be improved by minimal handling of goods and timely offloading.

 Divide Duties When Loading   And Offloading

 The organization can reject goods when they arrive at its premises at the wrong temperatures.  For that reason, it is vital to check the temperatures of goods before loading or accepting them to avoid losses. This can be easy if members of the organization are thrown into the mix to help double-check if the temperatures of the cold cargo are right.  After ascertaining if the goods meet the required loading and offloading temperatures, shippers and carriers should document the observations made to ease shipping.

Maintain Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

The cold chain requires well-laid policies and procedures for the swift movement of goods globally.  To maintain SOPs, logistics parties should assess the storage requirements and risks involved in the supply chain. The SOPs should state people responsible for the cold chain, activities of the chain, and how checks and balances happen. The logistics provider and the client should come to a common ground about the SOPs to facilitate smooth running off the chain.   Collaborations between all parties should tighten ass the risk level increase.

Effective Cost Management and Employing the right Technology

 Assessing the Total Cost of Ownership is crucial when moving cold chin products like pharmaceuticals.  Here, all parties should be keen on direct and indirect costs that can result in penalties, loss of market share, investment, bossiness, and brand value.  With that in mind, third-party logistics should economize on all aspects of the cold chain while considering the TCO to avoid putting the client at risk. In the US, Consumer and B2B companies have scaled their businesses beyond projections using third party logistics from Red Stag. With technological growth, it is vital to employ advanced cooling and heating systems to keep goods in the cold chain safe. With the technological growth, it is vital to employ advanced cooling and heating systems to keep goods in the cold chain safe. Nonetheless, modern monitoring equipment can help reduce the deterioration of frozen items.  For sensitive or expensive goods, employing the right Technology can ensure clients do not suffer huge losses. 

 The Bottom Line

 A well-functioning cold chain is important to the food and medicine or pharmaceutical sectors.  Despite this process growing complex over the years, there are certain practices you can always count on for easy transportation and storage of cold chain goods.  Carefully read the 6 best practices mentioned above for managing the cold chain and implement them to get the best from perishable products.

 

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