Environmental Sensors Providing Supply Chain Solutions

Rosy Amlani for Mouser Electronics

(Source: Tomasz Zajda - stock.adobe.com)

Environmental sensors provide information on environmental quality, collecting real-time data on everything from location, temperature, and humidity to barometric pressure and toxic gases. With these sensors, environmental information can be measured accurately, and the data can be tested, recorded, and stored. Ensuring that the correct environmental requirements are met is fundamental to many industries. Whether for the health and medical, food, oil and gas, or forestry industries, the use of environmental sensors within the supply chain is fundamental to quality control and helps improve operational efficiency, product integrity, and most importantly, safety.

Key Features of Environmental Sensors

The first step to incorporating environmental sensors in the supply chain is to ensure that they meet stringent requirements. While each sensor—whether it measures temperature, humidity, air quality, pressure, location, or radiation—focuses on a particular parameter, it must work at optimum efficiency. Enter ColdChase, a tech firm offering advanced cold chain solutions tailored to varied supply chain needs, complete with real-time tracking. ColdChase grasps the intricacies of diverse supply chain scenarios, crafting and vetting products that prioritize the needs of producers, logistics operators, distributors, warehouses, and end-users. They’ve tested many sensors, including several products from Mouser Electronics. One of ColdChase’s key requirements is ensuring that sensors continue to function below -40°C and up to +85°C to account for the huge temperature variations in the countries where products are being shipped. Ultimately, ensuring that sensors don’t fail under extreme conditions is vital. Some of the other features ColdChase aims for when selecting sensors to use within supply chain solutions include the following:

• Accuracy and Precision: high-quality environmental sensors are calibrated and designed to provide reliable measurements within a defined range and accuracy level.
• Sensitivity: high-sensitivity sensors can detect subtle variations in parameters, which is important for detecting trends and potential issues.
• Real-Time Monitoring: real-time data allow users to monitor conditions continuously and respond promptly to changes, which is especially important in applications such as air-quality monitoring and industrial safety.
• Data Logging and Storage: some sensors have built-in memory or the capability to interface with external storage devices, enabling the logging of data over time.
• Connectivity and Communication: connectivity options such as Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth®, cellular, or the Internet of Things (IoT) protocols allow data to be transmitted to remote servers, databases, or control centers for analysis and decision-making.
• Power Efficiency: environmental sensors often incorporate power-saving features, sleep modes, and low-power components to extend their operational lifespan and minimize maintenance requirements.
• Battery Type: the choice of battery depends on various factors, including the sensor’s power-consumption profile, required operational lifespan, environmental conditions, budget, and the feasibility of replacing or recharging the battery.
• Weather Resistance: outdoor sensors need to withstand harsh weather conditions and should be designed to ensure durability and protection against environmental elements.
• System Integration: environmental sensors can be integrated into larger monitoring systems, data analytics platforms, and control systems. This integration allows for automated responses and efficient data analysis.

The Technology Behind Real-Time Supply Chain Solutions

Of course, selecting the right sensor is just the first part of the puzzle in creating holistic supply chain solutions to meet diverse needs. The next challenge is developing the technology, the firmware, and the software. ColdChase does all that in-house and has developed a global asset tracking system to trace shipments and storage of highly sensitive goods and highly sensitive equipment. Environmental sensors are a crucial IoT technology for data collection and transmission that enables real-time analysis, automation, and decision-making across various applications. With that in mind, ColdChase’s complete supply chain solutions include the following key technologies:

• Rechargeable Nickel-Metal Hydride Batteries: sensors can be reused multiple times to protect shipments and the environment.
• Bluetooth and Cellular Connectivity: different connectivity options are available to help accommodate complex shipping environments and varying modes of transportation.
• Global Positioning System (GPS) Tracking and Geofencing: sensors are able to protect shipments fully with geofencing, route planning, and GPS tracking.
• Bluetooth Low-Energy Sensors: power-efficient sensors are rechargeable for long shipment activities and can be paired with gateway hardware or mobile connections to enable powerful monitoring capabilities.
• ColdChase™ Cellular Sensors: these sensors provide an option of geographical or GPS tracking without the gateway connection, and the built-in airplane mode makes tracking air cargo safer and easier.
• Warehouse Sensors: warehouse sensors provide automated temperature, humidity, and pressure monitoring of cold storage facilities with the gateway infrastructure and Power over Ethernet (PoE) connection.
• Customizable Monitoring Features: sensors can be customized in transit to monitor varying limits, including temperature, humidity, and air quality.
• Analytics Dashboard: a user-configurable dashboard enables users to set excursion parameters, view real-time data, and generate reports with actionable insights.
• Application Programming Interface (API) Capabilities: APIs enable users to simply integrate various supply chain solutions into their software systems, empowering real-time decision-making and efficient data sharing.

Environmental Sensors Tailored for Solutions

ColdChase engineers tailored cold chain solutions that address customer-specific needs and consider their pain points, resulting in real world, real-time data captures. Their engineering approach to optimizing supply chain ensures a precise solution deployment for every unique requirement. Often, with this approach, sensors do not have to be modified significantly. ColdChase might simply transmit data more frequently or help a customer to understand what parameters need to be monitored to help solve a cargo issue. Sometimes, however, a new solution is required, but in these cases, proprietary technology has been developed to meet those needs.

Another key aspect of ensuring that environmental sensors are fit for purpose is giving the right training so that users can integrate the sensor and the related data effectively to meet their needs. This involves utilizing a web interface to display all the data in an easy-to-use dashboard. Moreover, with the interface being fully customizable, users can decide how frequently they want data to be transmitted and displayed. Of course, people don’t want to run multiple systems, so APIs are vital to incorporate the raw data into existing software systems. For ColdChase, they’ve also developed an app for both Android and Apple users where they can review data from the sensors. In addition, the ColdChase system provides an audit trail for compliance management, providing a validated chain of custody from a product’s origin to its final destination.

Emerging Technologies in Environmental Sensors

By incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into supply chain solutions, different industries will be better equipped to deliver predictive modeling and adaptive responses. These data-driven insights will enhance environmental understanding and empower sensors to optimize energy use, predict equipment failures, and tailor responses to changing conditions. The ability to analyze variations in different parameters and identify when a failure is going to happen could provide significant benefits. Instead of users viewing the data and seeing an issue, AI programs alert them ahead of time. While people can look for spikes or anomalies in data manually, having AI enables more effective, dynamic, and proactive approaches to environmental monitoring and management.

Conclusion

Environmental sensors are fundamental to supply chain logistics. Although not everyone knows what to do when issues arise, because the technology is so advanced and the amount of data we can collect is so vast, what we can achieve is almost limitless—especially when you add the capabilities of AI. However, not everyone is fully invested in the technology or wants to change their processes, and while laws and regulations determine how often parameters need to be checked within different industries—for example, pharmaceutical and food safety—those checks are based only on points in time. Sensors enable 24/7 monitoring, real-time analysis, and predictive analysis. The advantages of environmental sensors make them vital to the ongoing safety of our supply chains and the surrounding environment.