Can You Trust Your Logistics Provider with Your Cold Chain Shipments?
You should have a reasonable expectation that your 3PL will handle your products correctly, but the ultimate responsibility is yours as the shipper. A good logistics provider will anticipate your evaluation and will be prepared for it. Here are a few tips for effectively evaluating and holding your 3PL accountable with your cold chain shipments.
Risk Assessment:
- What is their past experience?
- Human intervention
- Product hand-off points
- New routes
- High value packages
- Country to country transfers
- Outsourced data storage
- What’s happening inside of the box?
- Can they provide real-time updates on temp & location?
Holding Them Accountable:
- If they will not provide real-time visibility to you of shipment location, temp, etc.; you are responsible for doing so. Data-loggers provide you data after it is too late, the key is to be proactive.
- Package tracking devices such as the PT300 from Sendum Wireless eliminate the dysfunction that occurs when your cold chain shipment is expired or adulterated along the way.
- Regular update and alignment meetings, monthly or quarterly with your 3PL provider(s). This allows for a regroup and review together to improve processes.
- Human intervention causes errors, keep human errors to a minimum
2 Most Common Issues in Cold Chain Logistics:
- Human error (90% 0f the time according to Georgia Tech)
- No recording device present (80% of the time according to Georgia Tech)
What have we missed here? How else can we improve our cold chain logistics visibility, accountability and effectiveness? We would love to hear your thoughts.
We can help provide real-time visibility into your shipments, schedule a demo today to see how.
