Regardless you are a small or significant size fleet operator, acquiring and maintaining a competitive edge will always make the difference between companies that experience progressive growth with profitability and those that experience the pain of decline. Concerning the refrigerated warehousing and distribution field, a competitive advantage is in a large extent influenced by sound product management practices and driving operational efficiencies. Technology is now playing an intricate role by analytically identifying opportunities not previously recognized or available by traditional processes making it possible to acquire those advantages.
There is no secret that by now every responsible perishable food operator has incorporated proprietary procedures and policies to protect the integrity of the products they sell. Anyway, the industry continues to routinely accept a level of inventory shrinkage or loss as a condition of doing business. How about an organization outperforming their competitors by reducing this traditional cost of doing business even by a modest percentage? The rewards can be significant in a million ways.
Improper temps will result in spoiled goods, reduced shelf life, and customer complaints or rejected loads if not well supervised. Technology is now educating handlers to the numerous blind spots which may exist creating non-saleable or unsafe product. Real-time applications and alerts that sense not just ambient temperatures, but those that evaluate the core temperatures of products, allow management to proactively make educated decisions regarding perishable goods status.
Once it has been determined there was a failure within the cold chain, reactive decision are hard to stop. One of industrys worst concern is unknowingly shipping temperature abused products to market that could jeopardize public health, but far more common is the impact of a rejected load. A rejected load is a failure of all the transporter who has to scramble to back fill the order, the retailer who must manage a potential lost sale and, maybe the worst, the customer who goes home empty handed.
The technology that offers real time reporting on the temperature conditions of perishable foods should be connected with the means to manage specific assets and their cost of operations. The solution is paying extra attention when choosing the provider of wireless technology for warehousing and transportation. A professional provider supports features that generate critical data for evaluating asset performance along with ability to quickly react before the load is completely compromised. Cooltraxs technology keeps assets under the microscope of perpetual evaluation, no matter if what you worry about is trailer utilization, reefer conditions, fuel consumption, fuel theft or door security. With the cost of refrigerated transportation constantly on the rise, every means to keep operational expenses in check needs to be systematically employed.
Deciding upon the most effective resources to manage your business really makes a difference in an environment where the slightest competitive edge may mean the difference between success and failure. When selecting technology that protects your perishable food products and contributes to the better management of assets, the selection must be made carefully. There are those applications that provide simply general information and those that offer a truly in-depth analysis and only the second ones can truly offer you the competitive advantage.