Mean Kinetic Temperature: used by many but understood by few. For the food and pharma industries, knowing the Mean Kinetic Temperature (MKT) of a product or group of products during storage or shipment can be crucial to quality, safety, and falling in line with your auditing agency.
Put simply, MKT is a temperature value that attempts to simulate how a product was affected by temperature over a period of time. 
It is expressed numerically in either Celsius, Fahrenheit, or Kelvin.
Think of it like this: you have a pharmaceutical drug recently manufactured an en route to a storage facility. The temperature at the facility it was coming from was 43F, the truck it was shipped in was 27F, and the new storage facility is 38F. MKT simulates the effect of all those temperatures on your product.
Below we’ve outlined three tools to help you calculate the MKT of your processes, starting with the actual formula itself, followed by two progressively easier options.
1. The Formula (Difficulty Level = Hard)
For all you math whizzes with fond memories of the quadratic equation from high school, this should be right up your alley. For the rest of us, easier options await.
2. Excel Sheet Calculator (Difficulty Level = Medium)
We had one of our engineers/programmers put together a fully validated spreadsheet that will allow you to enter in temperatures from your data logger, and then automatically calculate your Mean Kinetic Temperature with the push of a button.
You can download the Excel file via the form to your right, and feel free to contact our service experts if you'd like more information.
3. DicksonOne (Difficulty Level = Easy)
DicksonOne automatically calculates your MKT for you. You will find it located on the screen next to your temperature and humidity values. Take a look at the screenshot below for proof!
If interested, you can learn more about DicksonOne, or give us a call at 630.543.3747 and we would be happy to discuss the specifics of your environmental monitoring needs.
7/1/2015: This post was updated to change the Default Activation Energy of the Downloadable Excel Calculator from 85 kJ/mK to 83.14472 kJ/mK
6/30/2020: This post was updated to reflect the fact that the Excel calculator is now validated.
