Introduction
Many companies, reefer trucks play a vital role in reaching the store fronts safely. It is crucianies in today's industries hire middleman businesses for their transportation services. One of the most common methods of transportation being refrigerator trucks or chiller lorries. These trucks are specially designed to carry perishable freight at any given distinct temperature to suit the items being transported.
Anywhere from the fisheries industry, pharmaceuticals, floral arrangements, food, drinks, and to the shipment of world class delicate wl for the truck rental company to provide their customers with trust through transparency, as the products spend quite a time with the driver and the vehicle.
Business Case
Observing the trucks’ location and sustained temperature inside at all times, is essential for a reefer truck company provider in adding value to their buyer. The opening and closing status of the door results in fluctuated temperature within the wine refrigerator trucks, thus jeopardizing the wine’s safety and shortens its product shelf time. The loss of wine bottles due to altered temperature and theft during the transportation time period, can result in a huge cost for the rented company, and increase lack of transparency and traceability. Product theft is one of the many leading causes of revenue erosion, as the wine bottles do not make it to the storefront shelf. Adding on, during the thieving affairs, the truck door is opened and closed at random time periods for long intervals, with no pro-active alerts sent to the responsible supervisor. Adding on, unresolved escalations due to the lack of data results in undetermined complications for the business, and loss of revenue.
Solution
In order to minimize theft of wine bottles and loss of temperature within the reefer trucks, we at Polar jointly worked with the company’s truck transportation service provider, to place polar kits on the truck’s door to ensure transparency. The device was the ideal choice in overcoming larceny by the drivers and alleviating temperature fluctuations, as it traces the truck 24/7. Most importantly, to ensure loss of temperature within the trucks Polar provides temperature traceability as well. Real time temperature and humidity monitoring gives your food products its optimum conditions, mitigating waste, cross contamination and the spread of food-borne illnesses. The unique feature of Senzmate’s Polar product is able to detect and record the reefer truck’s opening and closing status of its door. This empowers the rental company to provide transparency to its consumers, as the managers are able to monitor the driver, temperature, and the truck’s placement all throughout the day. It will track the records of the number of times the door was opened per day, plus the temperature loss, and the business is now able to analyze the recorded data history. Furthermore, the weekly, monthly data driven insight reports not only provides transparency throughout the supply chain, but also to the end users along with feedback. Moreover, the device also sends out real time alerts to respected persons when the door is opened on unregulated times. Due to the device being affixed to the truck’s door, the drivers will be cautioned before behaving in an unfaithful manner due to the monitoring of their driving behavior. Therefore resulting in the reduction of loss of products and revenue due to impacts.
Action Taken
Proactive alert systems, along with environmental monitoring sensors, location tracking sensors, and door opening/closing detection sensors by Polar, were deployed on the reefer trucks carrying wine. Thus, ensuring prominent quality of items throughout the supply chain, 24/7 tracking of the truck's location, and the door opening/closing status in real-time. As per the requirement, we used LBS to track the particular location of the reefer truck. Plus, enabled alerts to notify the management of the wine company if temperature inside the reefer truck fluctuated, and provided details in regards to the opening and closing of the door, including the exact time period the door remained open. Moreover, the weekly, monthly, yearly reports were submitted to the management to ensure transparency, and for auditing purposes. We also assisted clients in generating custom reports for their members along the supply chain, on behalf of the manual process.
Results
To say the least, this device depicts the saying “doing it right costs less than doing it over”, as you are now able to decode the hiccup before it grows. Now the company is able to recognize the reasonings behind their product loss, and the shortened shelf-life of products due to the altered temperature during transportation. Resulting in a higher ROI for the business as costs stemming off these drawbacks are put an end to right away.