Cold Chain Intelligence: How AI Protects Perishables and Boosts ROI

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 13% of the world’s food losses happen between harvesting and retail. The number is even higher for perishable, temperature-sensitive products that spoil during transportation. So what’s really causing all this waste?

There are several reasons behind this, most of them are tied to weak cold chain management.

• Heat exposure: Products can accidentally be exposed to heat during loading or unloading, causing them to spoil quickly.

• Temperature excursions: Brief temperature fluctuations can trigger problems such as enzymatic reactions, microbial growth, and oxidation, thereby degrading product quality. This becomes even worse when products switch between multiple vehicles and go through repeated loading and unloading.

• Equipment breakdowns: Issues like malfunctioning cooling units, broken fridge doors, or power outages, can compromise the quality of food products.

• Poor packaging: Perishables must be packaged carefully. Insufficient packaging or tampering could expose the product to temperature fluctuations, leading to food spoilage.

• Fragmented systems: Although companies use Warehouse Management Systems (WMS), Transportation Management Systems (TMS), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms, they operate in silos. But when these systems don’t talk to each other, decision-makers lose real-time visibility across the supply chain.

• Limited end-to-end traceability: If companies can’t monitor a product’s journey in real time, they lose control over its quality. They would not be able to recall the products or identify the contamination source if they cannot trace the product.

• Inefficient route planning: Manually planned routes, long transit times, or unplanned traffic delays can expose the products to heat and lead to product spoilage. 

Due to these factors, companies face challenges such as food waste, erosion of customer trust, and revenue loss. More importantly, every country and region has its own guidelines to maintain perishable products. Food spoilage could result in countries preventing the product from entering the market and companies losing revenue.

The most effective way to overcome these challenges is by using advanced technologies like AI and IoT.

How AI and IoT Protect Perishables And Boost ROI?

AI helps companies predict and diagnose issues, such as unexpected temperature fluctuations or equipment breakdown, and make data-driven decisions. IoT provides the data that AI needs to make these decisions. The powerful combination of both these technologies helps companies:

• Inspect product quality: With IoT data, companies can analyze product quality and safety and maintain their quality standards. For example, IoT-enabled sensors can provide real-time data on temperature and humidity changes, while AI can analyze this data to predict the quality and shelf life of perishables. This helps companies control environmental conditions and extend the shelf life of perishables.

• Detect anomalies: With AI and IoT, companies can easily detect anomalies from vast amounts of data. AI can study the equipment performance metrics or temperature data, identify deviations, such as temperature fluctuations, differentiate between normal variations and failure thresholds, and alert the human workforce to take timely measures. Continuous data monitoring enables companies to identify problems before they arise and take proactive steps to manage them. This helps prevent food waste and maintain product quality.

• Optimize routes: AI uses real-time sensor data to suggest the fastest and safest routes. It analyzes traffic patterns, weather conditions, and congestion in real time and finds the best possible route for shipping the product. This helps companies deliver the shipments as quickly as possible without any damage. 

• Improve traceability: Strong traceability is essential to safeguard temperature-sensitive products from contamination. With AI and IoT, companies can improve the traceability of their products. While IoT devices, such as sensors, carrier GPS, and RFID tags, monitor the product’s temperature and environmental conditions during transit, AI continuously monitors temperature and alerts the team when something goes wrong. This helps companies remove the contaminated products from the chain and protect themselves from costly recalls.

• Increase compliance: Every country and region has its own compliance rules, so companies must handle perishable products carefully to meet these standards. They have to maintain the products at a specific temperature. While IoT sensors continuously monitor product temperature and external environmental conditions, AI safeguards the product by maintaining optimal temperature. This helps companies stay compliant while ensuring high product quality.

• Save costs: With better traceability and consistent temperature control, companies can reduce waste, avoid recalls, and cut penalties. This helps companies save costs on product recalls and wastage. Additionally, they can reduce costs incurred by unexpected equipment breakdowns through better predictability.

The Role of CSCS in Modern Cold Chain Management

CSCS uses AI to integrate the Transportation Management System (TMS), Warehouse Management System (WMS), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, and other partner platforms into a unified interface. This eliminates data silos and gives every stakeholder real-time visibility.

The IoT sensors installed in transport units, such as reefer trucks, GPS trackers, and carrier APIs, gather real-time data. The data is passed on to a unified CSCS platform. This helps companies: 

• Manage dock schedules: Companies can automatically book or reschedule dock appointments based on transportation plans, inventory availability, and labor availability using the CSCS platform. This ensures timely loading and unloading and helps minimize dock dwell time and protect products from temperature fluctuations. 

• Optimize routes: With data from GPS trackers and carrier APIs, CSCS can track the vehicle’s location in real time, anticipate potential issues, and recommend routes that ensure timely delivery.

• Ensure reefer readiness: The CSCS platform ensures the reefer unit is pre-cooled and set to the exact temperature. It conducts a thorough inspection of the unit and alerts stakeholders if there are exceptions, such as temperature deviations or shock violations. This helps companies take preventive measures and safeguard the quality of perishables.

Conclusion

With rising global temperatures and increasing pressure on supply chains, managing perishables has become more challenging than ever. Luckily, technologies such as AI and IoT have made it easier for companies to detect problems early and take preemptive steps to mitigate them. However, for these two technologies to work well, companies need to integrate them with their existing systems. With CSCS’ AI-powered platform and AI agent SCOTI, companies can integrate their TMS, WMS, ERP, and other systems and unlock the combined power of AI and IoT. 

If you are ready to transform your cold chain operations with AI and IoT, we would love to help,  contact us.