Boehringer Ingelheim has partnered with an IoT cold tracking solution to monitor liquid nitrogen levels and temperature during poultry vaccine transportation.
“Because it continuously monitors the levels of liquid nitrogen, you’ve got complete piece of mind that the ideal conditions were kept during transportation,” Pierre-Emmanuel Deliou, director of technology, Boehringer Ingelheim, said.
During transportation, poultry vaccines are frozen and shipped in containers full of liquid nitrogen. Even small variations in recommended temperatures can impact the effectiveness of a vaccine, impacting poultry health outcomes.
Continuous monitoring
The IoT platform, developed by Alizent, uses sensors to continuously monitor the cold chain to help ensure product integrity and improve efficiency of the supply network.
“Connecting devices to the cloud with IoT allows you to track the entire transportation journey,” Deliou said. “It also gives you that compliance and quality assurance data so that you can prove that the entire transportation was done according to specification.”
If levels are low or if temperatures fluctuate, the system sends out an automatic text message to stakeholders. This allows for early intervention.
“You can still salvage your vaccines if you react right away to a notification,” he added.
Automating a manual process
Using IoT also minimizes the amount of manual labor required for cold chain management of poultry vaccines.
“In the industry, we’ve got challenges with labor shortages,” Deliou explained, noting that previously the tracking process required workers to perform a weekly time-consuming check of the liquid nitrogen levels in each tank.
“Now, you are able to use a miniature computer just to do that task of monitoring the liquid nitrogen levels and it’s a huge labor savings.”
Boehringer Ingelheim debuted upgraded service trucks that feature liquid nitrogen tanks and a built-in disinfection system that cleans the trucks between farm visits. The trucks feature a button in the cab that activates disinfectant sprayers in front of the wheel wells. An additional tank on the side of the truck can disinfect equipment, shoes and more.
