IoT projects: a temperature sensor that saved ice cream

Remember how you eat ice cream on heat. You have to be lightning-fast before it starts melting. If it happens to me, I lose 50 cents on my favorite Fantastick at the most. If it occurs with a truck carrying 20 tons of ice cream, the manufacturer loses $ 45,000 at the least. Let’s see how an IoT temperature sensor can prevent such losses.  

Just recently we wrote about refrigerated transportation of pharmaceuticals. Today, let’s see how transportation companies keep ice cream cold for days and how the Internet of Things is involved in making you happier. 

The ice cream challenge

One of the largest ice cream manufacturers transports its products to retail points using refrigerated trucks. In these trucks, ice cream is deep-frozen (-25 to 30 °С) to preserve its body, texture, and flavor unaltered. For sure, they know how to transport ice cream. But if the refrigerator stops working – due to breakdowns or because a driver turned it off to save fuel – the temperature may rise to 35 °С in hours. Melted and refrozen, the ice cream is not marketable and sometimes dangerous due to pathogens.

That’s why food manufacturers, market suppliers, and transport companies cooperate to ensure proper transportation conditions for ice cream and other heat-sensitive goods. 

Solution

KLOUDIP came up with the HAZER IoT platform. The refrigerated transport monitoring software provided by KLOUDIP addressed several issues: 

• Transportation environment control. The system alerts dispatchers about temperature variations and their reasons – refrigeration unit breakdown, sabotage by the driver, door opening, temperature regimen change, etc.

• Location detection. Dispatchers know not only what is happening, but where, and react accordingly.
• Communication with drivers. Transport managers know who is on the refrigeration truck wheel and can contact them directly through a mobile phone.

How it works

Here’s how to create temperature-controlled storage and transportation with a single solution.

1. The ice cream manufacturer connected all refrigerated trucks to the fleet management platform through long-life battery GPS trackers. It shows real-time vehicle movements on the map and provides one-click access to transportation conditions for dispatchers. 

2. The carrier equips each truck with an IoT temperature sensor that sends transportation environment data to HAZER. If there’s a temperature breach – a dispatcher gets an online alert. The history of temperature variations is available in reports and charts.

3. Drivers are also registered in the monitoring system and assigned to vehicles. Dispatchers know their names and phone numbers to call them if something happens. 

4. The fleet management system automatically builds optimized routes to any number of delivery points – shops and marketplaces. The system analyzes logistics and notifies transport managers of early and late arrivals, mileage in trips, and events on the way.  

5. Reefer trucks follow predetermined routes. If there’s an unauthorized stop or route deviation, it’s a procedure violation leading to thefts or delivery delays. The system detects it, alerts dispatchers, and helps to return trucks on the track. 

6. Dispatchers get a real-time temperature monitoring center on their laptops and smartphones. Each sensor is displayed on the screen as a colored widget – green by default. If there’s a temperature violation, the sensor changes color to red, followed by an alarm to a dispatcher.   

KLOUDIP made the temperature solution even more precise – capable of monitoring separate containers and refrigerated trailer sections. To do so, KLOUDIP installs an IoT temperature sensor in different sections of the truck and configures each sensor for an individual temperature regimen. Then it assigns these sensors to dispatchers through serial numbers, each responsible for a certain type of goods and their transportation environment.   

Results

The ice cream manufacturer controls 50 refrigerated trucks on the HAZER IoT platform. 

“The fleet management solution has already proved its efficiency and provided significant savings. The company came up with 60% savings by preventing ice cream spoilage and decreased labor and transportation costs by 35%.”

Sanjeeva Cooray, KLOUDIP’s CEO

Ice cream resendings and returns are in the past, as well as spoiled, lost, or stolen cargo, making the path ice cream path from the factory to your freezer shorter. So whenever you eat your favorite ice cream, remember the IoT and telematics technologies that helped the ice cream get from the factory to your freezer. 

P.S. If you have temperature-sensitive products manufactured, stored, or transported, we’ll consult you on how to take the processes under control. Contact us for advice.