Heat waves don’t just break records. They can damage precious cargo too. The common misconception, however, is to assume these only spoil food and beverage.
“When you say cold chain, you think medicine, seafood, vegetables or fruit,” Amir Khoshniyati, VP of marketing at Wiliot, told Sourcing Journal. “You don’t think about leather items, you don’t think about cosmetics. But the reality is that’s still cold chain.”
Leather cracks under heat, with some estimates placing the threshold past 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
These issues don’t usually surface inside facilities, which are essentially controlled environments, Khoshniyati said. They show up after the cargo has left the facility—when the trailer is driving across the desert, for example, and the cooling systems malfunction just as the temperature soars to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. This, of course, is not to mention the multiple hand-offs that can make it easier to just pass the blame.
“You’re going to start to point fingers through the supply chain. Where did it go wrong? And there’s a lot of assumption,” he said. “The beauty of our technology is we can pinpoint exactly when [and where] it went wrong.”
Wiliot is a physical AI platform that uses small sensors called Pixels to provide real-time data on what happens to products, whether they are on site or in transit. With a size no bigger than a postage stamp, a Pixel can track a product in cargo and monitor real-time conditions, including temperature.
Heat is an all-encompassing problem that has gotten worse with climate change. Just last month, scientists affiliated with the World Weather Attribution said heat this extreme would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change.
Extreme heat may be invisible, but its consequences are clear as day: from declining worker productivity to lives lost from heat-related deaths. Across supply chains, it can also take a toll on inventory as products are damaged by excessive temperatures.
Khoshniyati said the retail market misunderstands the issue when they limit cold chain storage to its traditional definition of perishables. Extreme heat can also compromise the quality of dry products, making it valuable to flag inventory that has experienced extreme temperatures.
Khoshniyati added that anything that stays in a hot environment for a long period of time will experience some form of impact, even if it is not under the “cold chain umbrella.”
The Pixel can operate up to 185 degrees Fahrenheit. It uses Bluetooth to relay data, and it does not need batteries to operate. Instead, the sensors are powered by radio frequency signals.
Khoshniyati said each Pixel costs 10 cents. It got its first large-scale deployment last year thanks to Walmart, the largest retailer in the U.S. The Pixel, which is now on its third generation, is expected to cost as low as 5 cents each in future generations, he said.
“What we’re really aiming to create here is a peace of mind on where your items are at all times,” he said.
