How to Select the Best Trailer Tracking Devices for Cold Chain Location and Conditions Monitoring

As a cold chain supply management company, you need to be sure that you have the best tools to accomplish your work. This industry is challenging enough, so it’s important that you invest in tools that are going to make you operate more efficiently with as little mistakes as possible. Cold chain tracking devices can make your job significantly easier and offer quite a few benefits to your business. This article will help you better understand temperature monitoring and how tracking devices can improve your business.

What is Trailer Temperature Monitoring?

Trailer temperature monitoring tracks the temperature inside of the refrigerated trailers, ensuring that the temperature and conditions are adequate for the goods they are shipping. This is essential for a few reasons, such as:

• Making sure that the customers get their high-quality goods safely and in a timely fashion.
• Can prevent any unsafe temperature fluctuations that can occur, using the standards from the FSMA regulations.
• Can save your business money by reducing the number of deliveries that are rejected because they went bad during the shipping p

In the past, the driver would have to continually stop to manually track the temperatures and other conditions in their trailer. With the new sensor technology available, the driver no longer has to remember to check the temperature because they will get alerts if there are any temperature issues to be concerned with. This also means that the driver can be more efficient, since they aren’t stopping to check the temperatures regularly. If there’s a problem with the temperature and conditions, you can know right away so that you can come up with a swift resolution to the issue such as getting another truck to pick up the goods to finish the delivery.

Benefits of Trailer Temperature Tracking Devices

If you are still wondering whether or not this is an important investment for your business, these are some of the top benefits that you can gain from using an IOT temperature and conditions monitoring system:

Compliance in Food Safety

There are high standards, rightfully so, when it comes to storing and shipping food items. Meeting these high standards can be very difficult for some cold chain management companies, leading to problems like spoiled food and returned inventory. This can be very costly and you may end up in trouble for failing to comply with the food safety regulations. By having tracking devices that ensure your temperature and conditions are adequately monitored, you are staying in compliance of food safety regulations and preventing the amount of returned food that you need to deal with.

Shipping Goods

Storing perishables and other sensitive materials is only half the battle; you have to make sure that the products stay safe when transporting them. Temperature and conditions monitoring is an essential part of this. Thanks to this technology, this monitoring is more accurate and more efficient for the driver. While in the past, they would have to regularly stop to manually measure the temperature and conditions of the trailer, now they get to check their phones to get an accurate read of this information. This manual measurement can also lead to human error, such as the driver losing track of time or not properly performing the measurements. Any failure in monitoring the measurements can lead to damage goods that won’t be accepted by customers.

Remote Monitoring

Not only will this help the driver, it can also help the cold chain manager in the office monitor this information. If something goes wrong, they can act quickly to prevent the loss of goods and the loss of income that comes with returned goods.

How to Choose the Best Trailer Tracking Devices

Now it’s important to get to how to choose the best trailer tracking devices. There are features that you really need to have in your trailer tracking devices. These features include:

24/7 Real-Time Tracking

Real-time tracking is essential because not only are you able to monitor the temperature and conditions, you are also able to track their GPS location. This not only helps your business better optimize routes but it also helps to give your customers an ETA for their deliveries.

Geofencing

Geofencing is an incredibly important feature to have because it can allow you to see if the trailer or assets go outside of the boundaries of where they are supposed to be. This can help in a few different ways. For one thing, this can help you recover a trailer if it was stolen. It can also help to determine if an accident happened, allowing you the time you need to get help and another truck to continue the delivery. Lastly, this can help you see if your drivers are staying on the route they are supposed to.

Efficiency

As mentioned a few times, before IOT sensors that track temperature and conditions, drivers would have to make regular stops to check the temperatures and conditions manually. This was time that the driver could use to take their breaks or to finish their routes faster. Because of the sensors, they can drive and the sensor will let them know if there’s any issues that they need to be concerned with and the drivers can be more efficient.

Budget

You want to be sure that you get a solution that works for your business and your budget. You want something that is high quality but is also affordable. There are options in various price ranges, but you need to be sure that you get something that meets the needs of your business.

Conclusion

Getting the best trailer tracking devices for cold chain location and conditions monitoring can be crucial to successfully managing your business. The types of products that you are dealing with in this industry are highly sensitive to temperature, whether it’s because they are perishable goods or are chemicals that could have issues if the temperatures get too hot or too cold. Being able to more accurately track the temperatures and conditions, you are going to decrease your risk of ruining items during storage and transportation. This is why you need to invest in the best trailer tracking devices.