How to Store & Transport Your Temperature-Sensitive Samples Safely – Advanced Tools for Cold Chain Monitoring & Compliance

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Hosted by: Steven Rowley - Field Sales Specialist, Helen Terry – IoT Project Manager, Renaud Foret – Analytics Product Sales Manager

Time: 35 mins presentation, 25 mins Q&A – 1-hour total

Overview

The food and beverage industry routinely handles perishable products and ingredients, while the biotech and healthcare sectors work with temperature-sensitive samples and specimens that can be irreversibly damaged through high heat or freezing temperatures. A series of activities and instruments are applied to maintain cold chain; preserve the integrity and viability of these items, right from production or harvest through to end-user consumption.

Whether you are directly involved in maintaining cold-chain or routinely handle temperature-controlled items, it is essential to understand the importance of cold storage and transport; temperature monitoring, as well as the need for maintaining indisputable traceability throughout the cold chain. Inadequate or sub-standard temperature monitoring can not only cause irreparable damage but also result in extensive delays, and losses in revenue.

Cole-Parmer® has developed a range of innovative tools that can be leveraged for accurate and continuous cold chain monitoring. Prevent unwanted temperature deviations throughout the lifetime of products and gain peace of mind with precise and compliant temperature reports.

In this webinar you will learn how to:

  • Prevent the loss of important samples by leveraging advance temperature-monitoring tools that help preserve cold chain; ensure your peace-of-mind, safeguard your workflow processes and revenues
  • Protect irreplaceable temperature-sensitive samples from unwanted temperature excursions
  • Produce detailed, accurate and compliant temperature data reports

Meet the experts featured on the webinar

Your hosts for this webinar

Steven Rowley - Field Sales Specialist
Steven holds a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines, and an MBA from the University of Colorado. He has extensive background in aerosol particle counting and trace-level gas detection within semiconductor and high purity gas sectors. Since joining Cole-Parmer in January 2019, he has focused on Test and Measurement solutions for a wide variety of industries and applications, with particular emphasis on cold-storage and cold-chain temperature monitoring and data-logging tools and techniques.

Helen Terry – IoT Project Manager
Helen holds a BSc and MSc in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University. She began her career with a company that designs and manufactures test equipment, helping customers understand and use the right instrument for their application. Helen has been with Cole-Parmer for a little over a year, focusing on the Traceable® products and Cloud-based monitoring.

Renaud Foret – Analytics Product Sales Manager
Renaud holds a First Degree in Sales and Marketing Management and a Business School Degree from ICL in Lyon, France. He began his career selling medical implants before moving to one that dealt with lab supplies. This is when he fell in love with the scientific world. He joined Kinesis / Cole-Parmer 4 years ago and over that time has been responsible for different business areas, including liquid handling, spectroscopy and academic labware, before settling in his most recently role looking after Analytics products, including the Digi-Sense®, Oakton® and of course Traceable® brands. He has worked with partners across the UK and EMEA region, leveraging his multilingual skill, albeit with a hint of his French accent!



Webinar Q&A

Is there a website where I can learn more about TraceableLIVE®?

https://www.coleparmer.com/traceablelive

I am more interested in the challenges of preserving the cold chain integrity across multimodal transport in export applications of food products. This requires battery powering acceptable for transit by air, for example with no Internet connection at times. Additionally, these devices need to be low cost, as recoverability/re-use might be difficult.

The TraceableONE™ Single-Use USB Temperature Data Loggers are the right product for transport monitoring and monitoring products shipped through multimodal methods. It is compact, IP67 rated, and can record temperature data for 10 to 90 days depending upon the model. It is also low cost.

How long is the battery life?

The battery life varies depending on the device used for monitoring, the sample interval chosen (shorter sample intervals consume more power—usually we suggest 15-minute sample intervals), the frequency that alarms are triggered, as well as whether there is mains/wall power in use as well, in which case the batteries will last years as they are only used in backup situations when mains powered is lost. But in normal conditions, battery life lasts 6 to 12 months for Traceable® data loggers.

Can we have the prices of these Traceable products?

I want to ask about the USB download data logger as well. A Cole-Parmer Sales Representative can provide you with pricing. Additionally, you may visit the Cole-Parmer website to find the list pricing of the products discussed in this webinar. Email [email protected] or one of the panellists to find the rep for your area. You can also get more information about the TraceableONE™ Single-Use USB Temperature Data Loggers on our website as well.

Is the temp monitoring continuous or is it recorded at intervals, say every 30 mins?

TraceableGO® is customizable (between 1 minute and 12 hours);
TraceableONE is preset depending on the model: 1, 3, 6, or 10 minutes;
TraceableLive® is selectable: 5, 10, 15, 30 minutes;
Excursion- Trac™ is customizable (between 1 minute and 24 hours).

How long is the information retained on the cloud? Can it be easily exported to the customer's system?

Customer device data is available for the life of the account. Download data easily from the cloud to pc or mobile devices. The output formats are .csv, .pdf, or secure .pdf files.

Can anyone download the data from the cloud?

Any user assigned to the device within the account (by account admin) has access to and can download data. Non-authorized users cannot see others’ data.

Do you know how refrigerated trucks for pharmaceutical products differs from those used in transport of food and beverage? What are the equipment and configuration differences between the two? (ISO1725++)

Since we are not experts in the trucking industry, unfortunately we are not able to completely answer this question. However, we do know that the temperature ranges set inside the trucks will vary depending on the needs of the drug manufacturers and the food & beverage producers. Data loggers can be used differently in both applications since you can specify the temperatures set for the alarms.

While cold chain is the primary topic/area of concern, can you discuss issues at higher temperatures, noting that some instruments have a temp range up to 300°C?

A few areas of concern for high-temperature monitoring really relate to the type of probe used (both probe and cable materials are of concern depending upon the upper limit: we use a platinum RTD sensor within a stainless steel probe and PTFE-coated cabling that handles temps up to 300 °C). Above 300°C, therm°Couple meters are used with various types of probes available and for which the accuracy of the meter/probe combination needs to be checked and assured it will meet the monitoring requirements for the application. Within the Cole-Parmer range of products, we have dedicated therm°Couples, thermistors and RTD thermometers for measuring high temperatures up to 2100°C.

Could I arrange a follow-up call with a panellist or other Cole-Parmer expert to discuss integration of monitoring into tractor trailers that transport vaccines? Thank you.

Absolutely. The panellists are available to support your questions, applications, or integration requirements.

What is the failure rate of these devices?

Our products have proven highly reliable over the years, with < 0.1% failure rate. Please clarify which products you presented have additional charges for the software and reporting. Traceable data loggers equipped with TraceableLive cloud service have three subscription tiers available: Free, Basic, Premium. The TraceableGO data loggers use a free application for data download (TraceableGO app); but they can also use the TraceableLive cloud service with a subscription.

Does the Bluetooth® transport data without a smartphone nearby?

The TraceableGO data logger logs data and internally stores it. To download data from the data logger, a smartphone or tablet is required. No data can be transmitted without a smartphone nearby and the TraceableGO placed into transmit mode.

Which of the data loggers is most robust and rugged for field work and transporting through rough terrains?

The single-use TraceableONE transport data logger, which is also waterproof thanks to its plastic pouch. Otherwise the TraceableGO also for transportation is relatively resistant.

Can the devices be used in a flash freezer?

Yes, the temperature data loggers can be used to monitor environments within a flash freezer. The electronics of the device will remain on the outside, while the probes are routed internally into the flash freezer via ports. Generally, a platinum RTD with stainless steel probe is used on the monitoring device, with products available that will monitor down to –90°C or lower.

Is there firmware or other safety built into the device to protect from hacking?

Yes, several different protocols are in place to prevent hacking and to ensure safety of data during communication transfer as well as in cloud storage. TraceableLive devices, unlike the IoT devices that have been exploited in many recent security incidents, connect to Wi-Fi networks passively, making the device virtually impossible to compromise. In addition to the security of the Azure platform, TraceableLive implements additional security. All communications between TraceableLive devices or users, and the cloud is encrypted using the HTTPS protocol. TraceableLive uses OWIN authentication and a role-based authorization scheme that restricts app users’ access to functions based on their role (Admin/User). Data queries are partitioned by account ID to ensure that no user will ever see data from another user account.

Each TraceableLive device is uniquely identified and validated by the cloud service for it to connect. How robust are the recorder tails? Are they interchangeable?

By “tails” we assume you are referring to the probes. Probes are designed to tolerate their respective application. For example, glass probes may resist an accidental dropping on the floor, but repeated drops may result in breakage. Only probes on the TraceableLive Ethernet version are interchangeable since the calibration data is stored on the probe itself. All other Traceable products are calibrated devices with probes integrated into the product and calibration data is stored on the device. For those, probes are not interchangeable.

Does the Bluetooth® transport data at a certain range and/or do you need a smartphone to transmit data while product is in transport?

The TraceableGO has been tested to transmit within normal Bluetooth range. The TraceableGO data logger logs data and stores internally while the product is in transport. To download data from the TraceableGO data logger at the end destination, a smartphone/tablet is required.

Follow-up questions regarding the cloud storage: Does the recorder have to be near an open Internet connection to upload the data, or is this done in an office setting on a secure Internet connection?

For cloud storage, the devices must connect either via Wi-Fi or via an Ethernet connection. For Wi-Fi connection to occur, the devices must be within range of the given wireless network router. For Ethernet connection, an Ethernet cable and port simply needs to be available. Data is transferred from the device to the cloud at intervals sets in the cloud using a Wi-Fi or Ethernet network. The strength of the signal is dependent on the user’s Internet network signal. Data upload is done through the cloud, which will send a link to your e-mail where to upload the data report either as a .csv or as a PDF file.

Are the devices IP-rated; if so which IP rating is TraceableONE?

The TraceableONE is IP67 rated. The protective plastic pouch keeps the logger dry. To maintain IP67 waterproof rating, do not tear open pouch before data download.

Will there be a TraceableGO available for temperatures below minus 30°C?

TraceableGO with external stainless steel probe can measure down to –90°C.

Can I know the price for the liquid nitrogen tang tracer with the Wi-Fi?

A Cole-Parmer Sales Representative can provide you with pricing. Additionally, you may visit the local Cole-Parmer website to find list pricing of the products discussed in this webinar. Contact [email protected] or one of the panellists for your l°Cal representative. The part number of the Traceable Liquid Nitrogen Data Logging Thermometer with TraceableLive with Wi-Fi is 18001-08 (comes with one stainless steel probe) or 18001-09 (comes with two stainless steel probes).

Is the software adaptable with any tablet and mobile phone?

The TraceableLive software is available for iOS® and Android platforms. Also, those with an account can log into their TraceableLive account at www.traceablelive.com.

Can these devices be sold without batteries?

Airlines are putting a lot of problems with this type of dangerous goods shipments. Many Traceable products have AA/AAA batteries which are acceptable for many airlines. Some devices can be sold without batteries. Please contact your Cole-Parmer Sales representative to inquire on a specific product or part number.

I need the price list.

A Cole-Parmer Sales Representative can provide you with pricing. Additionally, you may visit the Cole-Parmer website to find list pricing of the products discussed in this webinar. You can also contact [email protected] or one of the panellists to find your local representative.

I will be collecting samples all over the State of CO daily and would like to monitor sample temperatures throughout the transit. Which device would be best for my application (reusable)?

TraceableGO would be a good transit solution. You will be able to see information on the display during transit and will get a report at the end. Since this transport data logger is reusable and access to the data through Bluetooth® at the end of each day will make the task easy.





Learn more about Cold Chain: What is Cold Chain?