subject: Are You Monitoring Your Tru? [print this page] Is there any possibility to permanently monitor know what your trailer refrigeration unit (TRU) is doing and if it is performing to the standard you have established?
Most of the fleet managers within the industry rely upon yard personnel to monitor units when domiciled at home facilities, or depend upon drivers to manage refrigeration unit performance during transportation. However, the situations when reefers suddenly fail or product loads are rejected occur very often and it is not very clear why this is happening. But technology offers now the opportunity to get a real time view of how refrigerated assets are being managed and the corresponding impact this is having on product quality, food safety and improved cost of operation. So industry will no longer depend on individuals to assume responsibility for temperature management of high net worth loads.
Until now, fleet managers were able to dive into historical data to validate temperature compliance upon (or after) delivery or perform forensic investigations in an attempt to piece together what went wrong if there was a failure in the cold chain transportation. Nowadays, advanced technology such as Cooltrax, provides real time visibility of rolling refrigerated warehouse and allows management to respond quickly to a situation that can jeopardize load integrity or to communicate remotely to a TRU making adjustments to reefer settings. This means that management is in permanent control of trailer and products.
Many operators were skeptical regarding the use of real time technology in managing refrigerated assets. But there is definitely real opportunity to improve operations, such as excessive cool down times or drivers forgetting to turn their reefers back on after a point of delivery.
The detailed information that Cooltrax provides with real time alerts and reporting provides a detailed picture of assets and product while in motion. The ability to better control product integrity remotely by hands on management of product flow throughout the cold chain is unique and significant. Active involvement in refrigerated management allows food distributors to better predict food life cycles. And this is extremely important because it can generate great profits and also improve brand awareness.
With an increased awareness of product quality and safety initiatives influenced by recent food regulations and compounded by customer mandates, quality assurance directors and risk avoidance management personnel are also requiring access to the proactive information provided by Cooltrax.
Industry representatives should no longer rely upon yard personnel or drivers to control product temperatures and security. And, although some operators in the industry are apprehensive to engage technology because of what they may have to acknowledge or change, the track record of applications such as Cooltrax consistently validates a return on investment that board rooms approve of.
