What Temperature Recorders Can Provide over Time
Temperature recorders collect and log temperature data from their surroundings, which can be transferred to computer systems for review and analysis by administrators or management. Many industries rely on temperature recorders and ambient temperature monitors to responsibly store temperature-sensitive products while they are being shipped to customers and retailers.
For example, the food and beverage industry often uses temperature recorders to monitor the temperatures within storage units where food products are being kept. This prevents food from expiring before it reaches consumers. Lapses in temperature monitoring can result in foodborne illness outbreaks, which can seriously threaten customers.
Due to these dangers, regulators have enacted consumer safety laws that protect consumers by requiring that companies that ship or store food products keep detailed temperature data of storage facilities. Requiring companies to carefully monitor and report temperature data prevents the possibility of foodborne illness outbreaks and other public health crises.
It’s important that managers, as well as regulators, are able to analyze these large quantities of temperature data efficiently. That’s why the data must be organized and formatted according to specific standards before being submitted to regulators. To facilitate the organization and formatting of this data, companies make use of powerful data analysis software, some of which are approved or recommended by regulators themselves.
Temperature Recorders for the Pharmaceutical Industry
The pharmaceutical industry is similarly reliant on temperature recorders to facilitate the safe storage and transportation of pharmaceutical products. Many medical products can expire, become degraded, or lose their efficacy if exposed to unsafe temperatures for too long a period of time.
A timely example of why temperature recorders are so important is in the case of COVID-19 vaccines. These vaccines must be kept at low or ultra-low temperatures throughout transport. Healthcare workers and supply chain professionals must be trained on how to handle these vaccines in such a way that does not inadvertently increase their temperature.
Manufacturers such as Pfizer ship their vaccines in specialized containers that use dry ice to keep vaccines at safe temperatures. These containers also feature temperature recording equipment that ensures that these products are not exposed to unsafe temperatures.
Also included in these containers are other devices often used by companies to ship and store goods called data loggers. Not only can data loggers record temperature data, but they can also collect and store other kinds of environmental data as well. For example, data loggers can be programmed to detect whether the door to a storage facility is open or closed.
Some of these data loggers can also be programmed to send automatic alerts to manufacturers or managers if a door has been accidentally left open so that workers can close it before exposing products to unsafe temperatures. In addition, some data loggers can also collect different kinds of environmental data such as humidity and differential pressure.
As you can imagine, humidity and pressure data can be very important for storing and transporting sensitive products over time. According to Dickson Data, data loggers are also an important part of ensuring compliance with federal and local regulations.
Temperature Recorders for Environmental Changes
Both temperature recorders and data loggers have important applications for tracking environmental changes that impact populations around the planet. They are used extensively to track and interpret climate change around the world.
Temperature recorders are also used to measure weather patterns that could potentially be harmful to humans, such as the creation of urban heat islands. Urban heat islands are created by the high population density and temperature-increasing building materials used in metropolitan cities.
These environmental factors cause dangerous elevations of temperatures in certain areas of different cities, which can put urban populations at risk. Low-income and minority communities are particularly impacted by urban heat islands since many families cannot afford cooling systems and air conditioning units. Heat-induced illness and death can be a significant risk for these populations, and temperature maps can be a great way to mitigate these risks over time.
Temperature Recorders for Temperature Mapping
An important part of supply chain management for pharmaceutical companies is the establishment of a cold chain. The term cold chain refers to a temperature-controlled supply chain that can keep products at sufficiently low temperatures.
However, individual data loggers and temperature recorders are not enough to create reliable cold chain systems. That’s because temperatures within storage facilities can vary significantly. Therefore, a temperature sensor set up in one part of a unit might not reflect that temperatures in another part of the unit are significantly different.
Several different environmental factors can cause these temperature differences including venitlation, inventory load, and the placement of storage containers. To account for these temperature variations, companies use temperature mapping strategies.
Temperature mapping is accomplished by affixing several temperature recorders or data loggers to different areas within a storage facility. These devices will continually monitor temperatures, and managers can migrate this data into a visual temperature map that represents the temperatures in all areas of the unit.
Over time, optimized data analysis and temperature mapping can give company leadership the information it needs to meet quality assurance standards and act quickly if any of its products are in jeopardy.
Temperature mapping strategies can also be extremely helpful when it comes to environmental monitoring. Setting up temperature recorders and data loggers across different geographical areas and creating visual temperature maps of that data is an effective way to track important weather patterns and environmental phenomena.
By continuing temperature mapping over time, climate scientists can understand the effects and implications of climate change. Temperature recorders are therefore crucial to providing some of the information we need to counteract the effects of global warming.
To sum up, it’s clear that temperature recorders can offer some tangible environmental, supply chain, and pharmaceutical benefits over time. These often-overlooked tools are, in fact, critical to ensuring the safe transportation and storage of products that are essential to life like food and medicine. They are even playing a role in addressing environmental problems like climate change and urban heat islands.
