A lot of effort and concentration is focused on what happens to products within a manufacturing facility, whether that be food products, pharmaceutical products, or medical device products. Once the product is made, it should be safe to consume, right? Right! As long as best monitoring and quality practices have been executed, finished products should be good to eat. The problem, is that we don't eat our food right at the manufacturing facility. It has to get to us.
1. FINISHED GOODS
For manufacturers, monitoring their finished goods is one of the final steps in their part of the cold chain. It’s also one of the most important. When finished goods spoil and become unsafe to consume, a company can see the direct cost of a lost sale, and the indirect cost of all the materials and labor that went into that lost sale. If you plan to monitor the temperature anywhere in your manufacturing facility, monitor those perishable finished goods.
2. TRANSPORTATION
The cold chain wouldn't be the cold chain without . . . transportation. Moving goods from a business’s facility to a consumer’s home is the name of the cold chain game. With transportation comes cooperation. Cooperation between manufacturers, distributors, and resellers on keeping items that should be kept cold, cold.
3. STORAGE
Quick question: how come grocery stores don’t monitor the temperature of their coolers and freezers? Doesn't seem to make sense, right? Well, they don’t because there is no precedent for it, and there are no regulatory consequences to not monitoring temperature. Whenever we visit a restaurant, local pharmacy, or down-home grocery store, we love when we see just one temperature data logger in a facility. But, shouldn't there be more?
