How to Monitor and Avoid Mishandling During Storage and Shipment
By: Joshua Presley
Mishandling can occur at any point in the supply chain and can potentially cost your company a lot of money. Certain types of mishandling can be caused from impact, tilt, and temperature.
Luckily, there are ways to monitor and avoid this. The best way is to implement a monitoring system, like ShockWatch. Impact, tilt and temperature indicators mark potential damage or mishandling to one single shipment. Recorders are devices that can record and document from 100 – 800+ events including timestamps.
3 Trackable Indicators to Identify and Stop Shipment Damages
Impact
When used in companion with labels, impact indicators and recorders become a great visual deterrent along with notification of potential impact. Indicators are visual labels placed in particular positions on the shipment. They merge with the structural integrity of the box or shipment and have a red indication when an impact has happened. A good application for impact indicators is with electronics and medical supplies.
Tilt
With the aid of indicators and recorders, you can implement measures to reduce the likelihood of damage to carefully calibrated or sensitive equipment. Tilt Indicators monitor when unacceptable tilt has occurred or when product must remain upright during shipping and storage. A good example of this is when a company is shipping windshields. They can’t be placed on their sides and stacked or they can break.
Temperature
Wireless temperature monitors, indicators and recorders promote accountability when shipping and handling temperature sensitive products. Indicators can identify unacceptably high and low temperature as well as shows the cumulative amount of time of the exposure. Any shipments that involve food and pharmaceuticals would be benefit from temperature indicators/recorders.
Accountability Improves Shipment Handling
Almost all courier and transportation services recognize these indicators and typically take extra precaution when handling products that are monitored by these items. Carriers have the option of putting your packaging on the top shelf or the bottom shelf in their vehicle. They also have the option of walking the shipment over to the receiver or getting it out of their truck quickly. The visual deterrent along with the monitoring of these products will greatly reduce your damages/returns which in turn increases profit and reduces waste.