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The effects of time and temperature on the composition and the interaction of base chemicals and man-made chemical products are well-known to every industrial chemist. In the industrial chemicals market, the impact of time and temperature on TATS (Time and Temperature-Sensitive) materials is magnified by the financial implication of potential losses due to poor time and temperature management practices in the supply chain.
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Much of today's industrial chemicals is man-made and varies in sensitivity to quick fluctuations in environmental factors. The world is increasingly dependent on artificially made chemicals as man's quickened technological and scientific advances have accelerated the development of new synthetic chemicals and composite materials. Made to meet a set of specific industrial requirements, these man-made materials are often doped with time and temperature effected accelerant or catalyst in order to make them "work" faster in the environment for which they are designed for. This "doping" is a double-edged sword as materials formulated with this process require careful time and temperature management during their manufacturing, transportation, storage and reconstitution.
In today's industrial chemical market, supply chain costs are second only to manufacturing. As more and more of today's chemicals are man-made the risk of significant economic loss due to poor material management has become a critical business issue and a Good Cold Chain Management Practices (GCCMP) topic for industrial chemical suppliers and customers.
DeltaTRAK helps industrial chemical suppliers and customers with GCCMP compliance by providing them with supply chain TATS visibility solutions. DeltaTRAK's environmental monitoring systems offer customers with intelligence about changes in the supply chain time and temperature management routines, assuring their TATS materials are processed, distributed and stored at the defined conditions.
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The proliferation of wireless technologies in the past decade has brought great changes to many industries resulting in improved customer benefits. Nowhere is this truer than in the Food industry. Quality control is an absolute requirement for food companies, and is expected by customers and regulatory compliance. For years companies have monitored temperature of food products, such as poultry, produce, meat and seafood, using
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manual data collection methods with tools such as digital thermometers and temperature data loggers. As customers become more demanding and regulators more stringent, the current method is not cost effective to maintain. In addition, as operations get leaner, the manual methods are unable to keep up. Since the late 90's, wireless technologies have become mainstream and cost effective to implement, and promise to meet the needs of the Food industry.
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One company in Oklahoma has taken advantage of this technology trend and implemented wireless temperature monitoring, thereby bringing greater operational efficiency and gaining quality differentiation for its product.
Vaughan Foods is a Fresh-Cut Processor company centrally located near Oklahoma City. It operates an 110,000 square foot plant providing fresh cut vegetable and deli salad needs to distributors and customers in 12 states.
Their key customers include Wal-Mart, Sysco, KFC and Applebee's. The company's motto is "Fresher is Better", and thus, quality is paramount for its business. The management team at Vaughan is well aware that to thrive in this competitive market, they must put food quality and safety on top.
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An example of this strict quality control is in the outgoing loading process. Vaughan runs a private fleet of 25 trucks to transport to various customers. The process of loading processed foods into these trucks requires that the trailers are pre-cooled to 37°F (2.8 °C).
The penalty of loading foods into a warm truck means spoiled foods and shorter shelf life, and worse yet, customer rejection. On the other
hand, loading into the trucks too slowly means late delivery and inefficient use of the fleet. To compound this challenge, most shipments are made-to-order in order to maximize quality and shelf life.
Speed is essential in this operation. Vaughan used to have a dedicated person running back and forth to each trailer monitoring temperature using a retail circular thermometer. This dedicated employee cost the company an average 30 hours a week or $300. In 2004,
Vaughan realized that new technology is needed to improve efficiency in this area. "I decided on the wireless
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system," says Martha Siegel, Director of Quality at Vaughan, "because we needed to check trucks on-time and at reduced cost. All other systems required an auditor.
Last year I had one full time person assigned to the job; this year we have more trucks and would need 2 people." After some vendor research, Vaughan decided to use the FlashLink Wireless System from DeltaTRAK. The decision was made partly because of technology and also
because of DeltaTRAK's reputation for attentive customer service. Siegel continues to say, "another reason (for choosing DeltaTRAK) was that we have a good relationship with DeltaTRAK…We are very satisfied with the service and products."
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DeltaTRAK's FlashLink Wireless (FLW) System is a 900MHz / 418MHz, real-time environmental monitoring system capable of covering 1300ft line of sight with a single receiver, and can be extended to an additional 1300ft line of sight with each additional repeater. A single receiver can monitor up to 100 sensors of various configurations ranging from ambient temperature, temperature and humidity, and sensor with external probe.
In January of 2005, Vaughan installed the 900MHz system with a single receiver connected to a PC and ambient sensors and sensors with external probe mounted inside the trailers. With the FLW system installed, instead of a dedicated employee running to each trailer to audit temperature, an alarm sounds off on the PC connected to the receiver.
This simple automated process eliminates the need for manual auditing, and allows fast reaction by the dispatcher coordinating the loading process. Furthermore, the entire monitoring process is documented and recorded in the PC.
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The return on investment can be easily estimated as shown in the table below. Vaughan invested $2,300 for the entire system that required minimal installation time. Given a savings of $960 a month, the company can recoup the investment in the 2nd month.
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System Cost: -$2,300
(Installation and overhead are negligible due to the turnkey solution)
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$0
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$0
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$0
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$0
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$0
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Labor Saving: $0
(Based on 2 employees who would otherwise be auditing manually. Saving does not include burden incurred on full-time employees such as benefits)
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$960
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$960
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$960
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$960
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$960
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Total cumulative Saving: $0
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$960
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$1,920
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$2,880
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$3,840
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$4,800
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ROI $ = -$2,300
Break Even Period = 2 Month
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-$1,340
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$580
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$3,480
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$7,300
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$12,100
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The benefits don't stop at the financial spreadsheet. According to QA Engineer Darren Huffer, "The time improvement gained from using this system is tremendous. One Quality Assurance worker's time is freed up, saving at least 30 hours of labor a week...I highly recommend this system to any company wishing to track their temperatures more effectively." Because data is automatically collected into the PC station, the company now has an electronic record keeping system to analyze for quality and operational improvements. Finally, since quality is a key differentiator for Vaughan, the use of advanced technology gives them a step up on competition.
The wireless automation system, such as the one installed at Vaughan, can be a foundation for even more sophisticated applications found in different food industries. As company grows and expands to different locations, centralized network repository of monitoring information
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becomes possible, allowing an employee anywhere and anytime to access the information instantaneously with an Internet connection. With the addition of mobile wireless technologies, the same infrastructure could allow refrigerated trailer temperature to be monitored, a proactive approach to safeguard the freshness and quality of transported, temperature-sensitive food products such as poultry, produce, meat and seafood.
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