DHL in partnership with Microlise and AeroScout, has developed a dynamic new system for the pharmaceutical industry that enables real-time monitoring of shipment temperatures throughout an extended supply chainusing RFID sensors.

The three companies partnered with a leading healthcare company to develop a system that will help customers better meet temperature compliance regulations set within the pharmaceutical industry. Through a web browser linked to the Microlise Transport Management Centre (TMC) software, the system enables real-time tracking of the vehicle position along with the temperature indication from the Wi-Fibased AeroScout Active RFID tags.

The system has been installed inside trailers from Vienna-based Mueller Transporte, which specialises in temperature controlled transportation of BioScience products that need to be stored at between 2°C and 8°C. The first lane to test the system is from Belgium to DHL’s 3PL warehouse in Sweden.

AeroScout’s RFID Wi-Fi temperature sensor tags attached to shipments inside the load compartment continuously monitor and transmit the load’s temperature to a Wi-Fi reader connected to the Microlise tracking unit installed in the vehicle. This unit transmits temperature and vehicle location data via GPRS to a central server provided by Microlise, which hosts the TMC.

The system monitors the temperature against customer-defined rules and any change in temperature automatically triggers an alert message via SMS or e-mail.