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us alerts for high temperatures. The driver confirmed that his unit was set continuously at the proper temperatures but decided to go to the shop to have his equipment checked. It turns out he was low on coolant and didn’t know. The temp recorder was perfect the rest of the trip, and the product arrived in good condition.”
Lund sees smart reefer downloads as an emerging technology that gives brokers, and those monitoring shipments an edge, as well. “The trucks themselves have a lot
of temperature information,” says Lund. “But again, it’s passive. It’s giving the driver more control, but it’s not giving the shipper or receiver more information, unless there’s a problem.”This is why Lund prefers active devices, which are seeing a slow but steady increase in production and availability. “There are about four manufacturers now, so there’s a little more competition. They’re making the product better, cheaper and faster. When you get the temperature and location every five minutes, it’s a game-changer.” pb
Emerson’s Go Real-Time devices can do more than track produce loads; they can also help should a theft ever occur.
involved if they don’t use them.”
Batten hasn’t seen wider use of third-party
software that links the temperature to the carri- er’s interface yet, however. “I think the big thing for us isn’t so much the temperature monitoring as it is the tracking of the load,” says Batten. “We’re using MacroPoint and Trucker Tools to monitor that. We send a text or an email out to the driver, and it tracks him by his cell phone. It gives buyers a lot more good information to go on.”
This gives retailers options. When they hear that a driver, who is supposed to deliver a load the next day but is still thousands of miles out, they can adjust for it.
Fred Plotsky, president, Cool Runnings, Kenosha, WI, agrees that active devices are the better way to track loads, but disagrees in the value of any technology that only tracks the driver via software downloaded to their phones. “When you tie into a guy’s cell phone, says Plotsky, “that’s a driver who supposedly is carrying your load. But what happens when he switches loads? You have a load going from California to Chicago and you’re getting reports from a driver in Ohio.”
Plotsky thinks devices that are attached to the actual product and that deliver real- time location and temperature will someday become the standard. These devices provide flexibility and the ability to troubleshoot prob- lems. “We’ve seen that during cherry season,” says Plotsky.“We had a shipper call us and say, did you know you got a guy in Montana and he’s got 50 degrees reading on the temperature device? We call him and he was in the repair shop because his reefer unit threw a belt.”
Kazan at Target Integrated Logistics says his company has averted problems too because of good technology.
“We once had a load that was sending
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