Part 1: How to Get Globally Compliant in Cold Chain Logistic

In this first installment of our blog series on quality, complaince and efficiency, we’ll start by talking a bit about what it means to run a compliant cold chain in an international setting. So, let’s not waste any more time, and dive right in.

What Does Global Compliance Require?

Now, we know that compliance is typically considered a part, though hopefully not the whole, of quality assurance in cold chain logistics. And challenges with achieving and proving compliance can play a significant part in how efficiently it is possible to deliver cold chain products on time and in full to the consignee.

This is because cold chain logistics is often regulated quite closely by a number of both national and international bodies. As such, being able to prove compliance according to a particular regulation is then the very starting point of even being able to do business in such regulated industries. But the very act of proving and maintaining compliance may sometimes in itself cause delays to shipping (more on this in next week’s post).

Of course, if the various regulatory bodies had a completely identical approach to what makes a compliant quality and safety process, it would make proving compliance a lot easier. However, this is not always true, and doing business in an international setting can mean you need to be able to deliver compliance data that satisfies a number of different requirements. Which usually means finding the typical process values, i.e. the ones satisfy most requirements your logistics operation has to deal with.

Typically, you’ll still need to adapt somewhat depending on where in the world your shipment happens to be traveling, but on the whole you will have such processes in place that you know you’ll generally be compliant throughout your logistics chain, no matter where it may take you.

But having compliant processes in place is not enough in itself. You also need to prove that those processes do what they are designed to do. And here we need to talk about increasing visibility in the logistics chain and how that can help improve quality and maintain compliance.

So do return next week for the next installment of Quality & Efficiency; Can You Have Both, where we’ll be discussing the kinds of visibility options we have currently in cold chain logistics.

You can also find more information on this and other related subjects on our most comprehensive resource yet: Temperature Monitoring in the Pharmaceutical Cold Chain