RFID cold chain transportation

Cold chain transportation refers to transportation that keeps the transported goods at a certain temperature during the entire transportation process, whether it is loading and unloading, changing transportation methods, replacing packaging equipment, etc. Cold chain transportation can be road transportation, water transportation, railway transportation, air transportation, or a comprehensive transportation mode composed of multiple transportation modes. Cold chain transportation is an important part of cold chain logistics. The main objects of cold chain transportation include: pharmaceuticals such as vaccines and blood products; fresh food such as quick-frozen food, meat, etc., cold drinks, vegetables, fruits, aquatic products, etc.

RFID temperature tag is a tag that closely combines digital identification and temperature measurement. It not only completes the identification of materials through digital identification, but also measures and records the environment in which it is located. This article makes some in-depth discussions on RFID temperature tags in the field of modern cold chain transportation.

Introduction to the current situation of cold chain transportation

The food cold chain transportation rate in the United States, Japan and Western European countries reaches 80% to 90%, and that in Eastern European countries is about 50%, while in my country it is only about 10%. It is understood that the waste caused by discarding rotten food in our country last year reached 70 billion yuan, accounting for as much as 20% of the total value of food production. This waste is mainly caused by the lack of a cold chain transportation system, which results in some food being discarded during transportation because it cannot be kept fresh for a long time. For drugs, temperature deviation will lead to deterioration of drug quality and even toxic mutations; freezing of peptide and protein drugs will reduce the potency, affect efficacy, freeze the vaccine activity and even produce harmful toxins.

For cold chain transportation, we must know its temperature. The traditional monitoring method is to use a temperature recorder to measure and record the temperature of the entire carriage. That is, each transport vehicle puts one or more temperature recorders to measure and record the transportation. When the goods arrive at the transportation destination, the data will be imported into the computer through a wired connection between the temperature recorder and the computer, and then data statistics and analysis will be performed, such as finding the maximum value, minimum value, and curve trend. Traditional temperature recorders have shortcomings such as being expensive, bulky, unable to measure the temperature of a single box, unable to automatically identify product information, and requiring wired connections and manual intervention to export data. They cannot meet the temperature monitoring requirements of the modern cold chain transportation industry. .

In addition to temperature, the cold chain transportation industry also faces a problem of separation of responsibilities. A person in charge of cold chain transportation once expressed this emotion: "Our company's refrigerated transportation and cold storage are controlled according to the food standard temperature, but the temperature received from the supplier is When delivering goods, we often find that the supplier does not handle the goods according to the corresponding temperature. When this happens, we will refreeze the goods and then transport them to various Stores. However, once problems arise in the stores, the customer will transfer the responsibility to us. On the other hand, for some companies that do not have a strong sense of responsibility, in order to save costs, they turn on the refrigeration machine when the customer loads the goods, and then turn off the refrigeration equipment when the goods are almost ready during the transportation process. Turning on the refrigeration machine when the cold weather is on the ground cannot be turned on for the whole process. When the goods are delivered, although the goods are frozen well on the surface, they have actually deteriorated. Therefore, the issue of separation of responsibilities is also an issue that needs to be solved urgently. That is, when the product arrives at the recipient and the product quality does not meet the requirements, it must be determined whether it is due to the transportation temperature of the goods not meeting the requirements. It is precisely because of such concerns that some large domestic pharmaceutical companies would rather spend a lot of money and high costs to build their own logistics than use third-party cold chain transportation companies. Obviously, the cost of doing so is expensive.

Application of temperature labels in cold chain transportation process

RFID, as an emerging automatic non-contact identification technology, has developed rapidly at home and abroad, and research on introducing RFID technology into the field of logistics applications has become a hot topic. Designed and developed a tobacco logistics sorting system based on RFID technology, realizing automatic sorting of tobacco products; based on the demand analysis of the logistics tracking system of automobile manufacturing enterprises, a logistics tracking management system based on RFID was proposed; and a series of applications, the above applications RFID is only used as a kind of identification to identify products, but for the modern cold chain transportation industry, it is not only concerned about the identification of its products, but also the temperature values related to it. The temperature label has both digital identification and temperature information, which can meet the requirements of cold chain transportation temperature monitoring.

The RFID temperature tag provides energy for temperature collection and storage through the built-in battery, and can independently complete the temperature collection and storage. When it enters the effective identification range of the card reader, it obtains energy through the stimulation of the card reader to complete data exchange. This This temperature tag has extremely low current consumption.

RFID temperature tag is an ultra-high frequency temperature tag that complies with the ISO/IEC 18000 standard.

The usage process of RFID temperature tags is as follows: When the product leaves the warehouse, according to the needs of cargo transportation, the temperature tag is affixed to the surface of the object to be measured, and the temperature range is set. The temperature tag will automatically record the temperature, and the preset collection cycle will be uninterrupted. The ambient temperature value is recorded, and the handheld terminal displays it in real time, and an alarm is issued when the temperature range is exceeded; during the transfer process of goods, the information and temperature of the RFID tag of the container are read through the handheld terminal to ensure the effectiveness of the goods; during the warehousing of the product , the handheld terminal can conveniently, quickly and accurately sort goods according to the RFID tag information while verifying whether their temperature meets their storage temperature. When goods that meet the storage temperature requirements are put into the warehouse, the temperature data will be synchronously imported into the database, and the entire logistics The whole process of temperature recording is achieved to ensure product quality.

RFID temperature tags can collect and record the ambient temperature values of transported goods. They can be used to record the ambient temperature of goods in all aspects of production, storage, transportation, sales, and before consumption, achieving full temperature traceability. Therefore, accident liability issues can be effectively distinguished, and accident liability issues can be effectively distinguished. It is suitable for both the transporter and the consignor of goods; RFID temperature tags are more suitable for cold chain vehicle temperature monitoring due to their real-time nature, simultaneous reading of a large number of tags, and good scalability, thereby ensuring the quality of goods.