Project Management for Cold Chain Distribution

Step-by-Step

We're committed to partnering with you throughout the management of your cold chain project. Our experienced thermal package design and testing staff members will help you identify effective solutions to your temperature-sensitive packaging needs, and implement an efficient, comprehensive cold chain shipping system.

We'll support your organization with a well planned approach. Our proven solutions will meet your need for quality, distribution and logistics, and engineering. As part of our services, we'll always provide you with a step-by-step overview of your project before it begins.

• For complex projects, a team project manager will focus on building and communicating the elements of a well developed cold chain shipping system. Our team consists of dedicated sales/ project managers, customer service representatives, QA, operations management, and Cold Chain Laboratories' design and project engineers.
• For projects involving off-the-shelf solutions, our sales and customer service will manage your selection and deliverables. We'll work with your personnel to meet your specific needs and acceptance throughout the entire process.
• Our support continues with services such as:
• packout procedures and aides;
• storage and freezing management of your packaging items;
• validating your controlled temperature warehousing;
• maintaining inventory levels;
• ensuring supplies for unexpected demand;
• directing pre-kick-off on-site reviews; and
• periodic review of your shipping lanes.

Step 1

Understanding Your Needs

Safe Temperature Range

Cold chain management requires maintenance of a shipment's payload at a specified temperature range (and excursions if appropriate) as it travels in an ambient environment. To meet this objective, the initial challenge often involves determining the product's safe storage and transit requirements. It is important to note that a product's stability data typically extends beyond a label's storage requirements. For this reason, your engineering, QA, and distribution groups must be well coordinated, and must consider the available and appropriate temperature ranges used both in storage and in-transit. During this process, we can help you weigh various factors that impact this evaluation.

Temperature Profiles

Developing reliable temperature profiles that reflect real shipping situations is the next challenge in cold chain management. These profiles serve many purposes:

1. They allow us to develop an effective packaging solution based on the most likely challenges of the ambient shipping environment.
2. They enable you to defend your design and testing methodologies to QA and outside regulatory agencies.
3. They can facilitate enormous cost savings on both freight and packaging by reducing the need to over- engineer a design.

As part of our project management, we'll help you develop ambient profiles. Unfortu- nately, when it comes to weather, one size does not fit all. Therefore, we'll utilize a number of approaches including mapping the ambient shipping lanes (thermal mapping), and analyzing historic temperature data bases along side your distribution process.

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Step 2

Analyzing Existing Cold Chain Product Line

Many companies find themselves with specific containers that are limited to individual products. These multiple packouts may occur when cold chain packaging develops over time without an overall strategy. We'll maximize your packout flexibility by searching for synergies across functional areas, includ- ing stability temperatures, payload sizes, and shipping times. We'll arrive at a series of solutions that take your entire product matrix into account. Our goal is to meet your cold chain needs while keeping your operational process simple.

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Step 3

Developing the Best Solution, Pre-Qualification Testing

Assessment

We'll put your project on a focused, fast track to completion. We'll communicate our capabilities, and fully assess your needs using a detailed questionnaire. Based on your requirements, we'll prepare a detailed budget estimate for your approval.

Design

Using our extensive knowledge of thermodynamics and thermal materials, KoolDesigns™, our proprietary software modeling program, and our database of thousands of successful designs, we'll develop optimal thermal solutions for your temperature-sensitive products. We'll analyze your total cold chain requirements, including distribution, logistics and economics. We'll consider overall costs and the cost- effectiveness of the insulating material's R-value, refrigerants, ease of pack-out, overall size and weight of system, materials of construction, and type of shipment.

Refinement

The actual design process begins by combining our modeling capabilities with our existing data base to create the initial thermal package. From there, we build prototypes and test them in our temperature chambers to refine and improve our designs. By thermally mapping your prototype's payload area, we identify high and low temperature points. If necessary, we alter the prototypes and quickly converge on an optimized design and provide you with a detailed Pre-Qualified Report, complete with component qualifications (CQ), CAD drawings, physical prototypes, material costs, and estimated freight costs.

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Step 4

Final Qualification Testing (Operational Qualification)

Final qualification, sometimes referred to as validation, will be conducted in triplicate on the solution that passed pre-qualification testing. Our engineers will develop a detailed protocol, and secure your sign-off. As needed, we'll run both thermal and physical final qualification testing. You'll receive complete and extensive documentation (printed and electronic), and we'll participate with you in detailed follow-up discussions.

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Step 5

Performance Qualification

The purpose of simulated physical and thermal testing is to anticipate the challenges of actual shipment. However, nothing replaces the need for live shipments. We'll work with you to conduct Performance Qualification by performing sample shipments to various locations from your designated shipping point. We'll log the data and have the container inspected on arrival to ensure the effectiveness of the design.

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Step 6

Manufacturing and Implementation Training

We're committed to timely, organized project management. To meet this goal, we'll provide you with:

• specific timelines, including schedule of events for tooling, and delivery dates
• documented SOPs for the manufacture of new parts (tolerances, lot tests, printing, etc.)
• set up of production sites, stocking levels for finished inventory, warehousing sites

Our job doesn't end when our product arrives at your site. We provide extensive implementation training that enables you to run an efficient cold chain operation, including:

• user friendly step-by-step procedural packout guides for your distribution centers (DC)
• hands-on training of your DC staff by our technical experts
• a review of logistical handling such as refrigerant freeze time, onsite preconditioned product timelines, and administrative coordination for JIT operation.

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