With the cold chain market set to explode, temperature-controlled fleets are looking to sophisticated new technologies that provide precision monitoring of perishable cargo.
Ben Ames has spent 20 years as a journalist since starting out as a daily newspaper reporter in Pennsylvania in 1995. From 1999 forward, he has focused on business and technology reporting for a number of trade journals, beginning when he joined Design News and Modern Materials Handling magazines. Ames is author of the trail guide "Hiking Massachusetts" and is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism.
Supply chain visibility is a crucial capability in the trucking sector, allowing fleet managers to track the precise location and condition of every vehicle as they hustle to meet strict delivery schedules while complying with a host of regulatory requirements, including driver hours-of-service caps. Nowhere is that more true than in the cold chain, where fleet managers must meet all those demands plus one more thing—keep their freight within precise temperature ranges at every step of the journey.
Meeting this challenge requires far more than simply bolting an air conditioner onto a refrigerated "reefer" truck and uploading a tracking app to the driver's smartphone. So in search of better ways to monitor freight temperatures in transit and provide real-time data to shippers, the industry is turning to new technologies such as sensors, the Internet of Things (IoT), fifth-generation (5G) wireless networking, and blockchain data sharing, experts say.
Cold chain fleet managers say those platforms could change the way temperature-controlled trucking is performed within the next five years. By providing improved environmental monitoring, track-and-trace capabilities, and supply chain visibility, these technologies could also help fleets keep up with exploding demand for temperature-controlled transport. The global cold chain market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.6% from 2018 to 2023, to reach a value of $293 billion by the end of that period, according to the Northbrook, Illinois-based research firm Markets and Markets Inc. The growth will be driven by the expansion of international trade in perishable foods, technological advancements in refrigerated storage and transport, government support for infrastructure development, and increased consumer demand for perishable foods in both grocery stores and online channels, the research firm says.
As volume ramps up, cold chain practitioners are seeking tools that provide more detailed visibility into what's happening in their supply chain, according to Greg Bryan, executive vice president of Lineage Logistics, a Novi, Michigan-based refrigerated warehousing and logistics company that operates more than 200 warehouses across the U.S. and manages more than $250 million of freight globally in its network.
In comparison with nonrefrigerated—or ambient—trucking fleets, temperature-controlled transportation offers added challenges, Bryan says. For example, operators are sometimes required to pre-cool a trailer before loading the goods inside.
"The temperature-controlled side of the business is more challenging, especially if you're making multiple stops, going from location A to B to C," Bryan says. "Let's say you stop at point B and open the trailer. Then warm air hits the load, so you need to make sure [the loading crew is] ready to move the product, because all you're doing is moving hot air into the trailer."
Adding more financial pressure, many businesses have instituted significant fines for cold chain products that are not delivered on time, charging as much as 3% to 4% of the invoice price. That penalty could be significant when you consider that high-value products like fish and seafood frequently generate load values of well over $100,000 per truck, Bryan says.
CURRENT TECHNOLOGY FALLS SHORT
Despite the need for precision, obtaining the required visibility can be a challenge for the fleets that typically serve the cold chain sector. The average-sized fleet in the temperature-controlled business consists of about 20 trucks, whereas fleets on the "dry" side can boast up to 200 trucks, Bryan says. In those smaller fleets, a driver's data visibility is often delivered through nothing more than a cellphone, as opposed to the sophisticated telematics systems used by larger fleets with greater resources.
Third-party logistics service providers (3PLs) that contract with those smaller fleets may have no choice but to rely on a driver to enter temperatures into a smartphone app at each stop, a dicey approach if drivers are traveling in areas with spotty cellphone coverage. As an alternative, shippers and retailers are increasingly doing the job themselves by attaching a physical temperature sensor to their pallets, he says. That device allows shippers to monitor the load's conditions throughout its journey, although it may not interact directly with a carrier's platform.
To close those gaps in data monitoring and information sharing, Lineage plans to launch an online portal this year that will give its customers greater visibility into shipments in transit. Still in development, the system would monitor temperature conditions and automatically send an alert if a load grows too warm, Bryan says.
Another new approach to boosting cold chain visibility entails improving the platforms that run on the handhelds or smartphones that often serve as a driver's only link to his fleet, according to Will Salter, president and CEO of Paragon Software Systems Plc, a U.K.-based routing and scheduling software vendor. Paragon now offers a workflow management product that runs on drivers' Android-based handhelds and allows them to receive instructions on deliveries, such as changes to times or locations. As each driver checks the temperatures on the truck—a single vehicle may have multiple sections spanning chilled, ambient, and frozen—he or she can record the data; the system will then automatically generate reports on when the driver reached delivery locations and dropped off loads.
IoT AND BLOCKCHAIN ENTER THE PICTURE
Whether they deploy temperature sensors or phone apps, companies can choose from an array of products designed to help keep tabs on temperature-sensitive cargo. A number of players in the market already provide cold chain monitoring equipment to measure temperature in transit or in storage, then communicate that information to trading partners.
But most of those systems fail to track shipments through the complete supply chain, including manufacturing, inventory storage, and distribution, according to Jai Suri, senior director, product management, IoT Cloud for the Redwood Shores, California-based enterprise software vendor Oracle Corp. Instead, they collect tracking information from separate sources, he explains. However, because the data from those disparate sources isn't connected, analyzing the root cause of "excursions"—or departures from set temperature limits—can take days or weeks, and the cost can run into the thousands of dollars, he says.
To address that challenge, Oracle's fleet management solution—which is part of the Oracle Transportation Management suite—creates a unified database from information gathered from a range of sources, such as sensor data from a moving vehicle, links to a vehicle's onboard computer known as its controller area network (CAN), sensors on the trailer, and tracking devices on pallets. The company then processes the data using a cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) approach and applies "automatic anomaly detection models" to notify a transportation service provider that its shipment is at risk, Suri says.
Oracle has also developed an intelligent track-and-trace platform that uses blockchain technology to create a secure online "ledger" where trading partners can view each other's information, and is currently developing a specialized version of the product for cold chain users. That track-and-trace platform takes a broad-based view of the transportation process, covering activities beyond just the transportation leg that begins once the product has been loaded onto a truck.
"A lot happens before and after that too, and that's where we see a lot of excursions—during storage and dwell time, or in the staging area of the warehouse," Suri says. "You need to know how long [a load] has been left at each stage and was it temperature controlled, because a supply chain involves many different trading partners and the chain of custody can involve many sets of hands."
Combining an IoT approach with blockchain-based data sharing will allow platforms to collect data directly from sensors, eliminating the need for data entry by fallible humans. Fueled by that accurate information, users will be able to trace incidents back to the exact batch and avoid expensive recalls, he says.
That approach is rapidly become more affordable, thanks to technology such as lightning-fast 5G wireless networks that enable faster IoT systems and "edge analytics" hardware that processes data on the truck where it was gathered, instead of transmitting it to the cloud first.
Powered by those advances, cold chain transportation fleet management is on the verge of a leap forward in capabilities, experts agree. In the coming years, trucks delivering refrigerated cargo will be able to automatically communicate vital details to dispatchers and customers alike, allowing trading partners to prevent spoilage, preserve valuable goods, and avoid expensive recalls.
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.