Medical laboratories require a temperature-controlled environment to preserve blood specimens, vaccines, medications, and biological samples. Efficient cold storage solutions optimize space and provide optimal temperature control for long-term or short-term storage.
Cold storage warehouses must rely on automation to slash labor costs and keep temperatures consistent. These systems function in cold and heat, freeing human workers from frigid and uncomfortable working conditions. Contact All Temp Air Conditioning & Refrigeration experts to help you find what you need.
Temperature Control
Cold storage solutions are designed to maintain the integrity of frozen or refrigerated products and goods in a warehouse environment. This is important to avoid product spoilage and loss of quality. They also have to consider energy efficiency and sustainability, which is a growing concern among cold storage customers. These concerns are not only related to environmental factors but also to the profitability of the warehouse and energy costs.
For example, a warehouse with a temperature control solution is more efficient than a conventional warehouse in terms of energy consumption. This is because the refrigeration equipment does not have to work as hard and can operate at lower temperatures. Additionally, the use of air conditioning reduces energy consumption and air conditioning costs.
Biological samples and specimens handled by laboratories are sensitive to temperature. This is why laboratories need cold storage facilities to preserve the quality of their work. However, these labs often need to transport their specimens between sites or even outside of their premises for a variety of reasons. That’s why they need to rely on cold chain solutions that provide proper temperature regulation and maintenance throughout the logistics process.
Many cold storage solutions are designed with a high degree of flexibility to fit varying requirements. These solutions can range from small freezers to large blast freezers. Some can also combine different temperature environments based on the specific needs of each item. For instance, pharmaceutical-grade cold storage warehouses are built to store blood, certain vaccines, and biopharmaceuticals.
These warehouses also need to be equipped with automation solutions. These systems can take the place of manual processes such as material handling and transportation, reducing labor costs while freeing up human workers to perform more valuable tasks. They also enable higher SKU density and better exploit space in the warehouse.
In addition to maximizing warehouse capacity, cold chain-ready automation can help prevent a significant percentage of food wastage. This is because cold storage environments are particularly susceptible to oxidation and spoilage due to moisture content. The right cold storage solutions can minimize this effect by minimizing temperature fluctuations and regulating humidity levels.
Humidity Control
Cold storage requires more than just regulated temperature. Whether it’s a freezer or cooler, or a room that holds pharmaceuticals and food products, the relative humidity needs to be kept in check as well. High humidity levels promote the spread of bacteria, germs, and airborne organisms and cause condensation that ruins items inside.
A dehumidification solution can ensure that your facility’s air is dry, preserving the integrity of all your goods and products. Dehumidification can also prevent costly ice and mist build-up in your facility, reducing accidents caused by slippery floors, falling ice, or reduced visibility. It’s essential to maintain the highest safety standards in your cold storage facility, and a dehumidification solution can help.
If your facility isn’t equipped with a dehumidification system, a plethora of problems can occur, from condensation to ice build-up that ruins items stored in your facility and drives up operating costs. In addition to affecting your warehouse operations and product quality, the ice and condensation that can form on equipment can lead to safety issues for employees.
In addition to ensuring the correct relative humidity level, a cold storage solution should also be able to keep moisture away from your facilities’ sensitive electronic components. Humidity controllers can be found in a variety of forms, from simple analog and digital front panels to computer-programmable devices that monitor, record, chart, and graph data. These devices are suitable for use with liquids, solids, gases, and steam.
A smart dehumidification system can maintain precise humidity levels automatically without requiring maintenance. The systems monitor the ambient air and adjust their capacity to meet your desired set point, ensuring your operation always runs as expected with no energy wastage.
Automated cold chain storage and retrieval systems speed up workflows and ensure fulfillment accuracy. They can be integrated into your existing automation and scalable to support your growing business. Solutions are ideal for accelerating throughput in your cold storage facility, supporting lights-out operations, and cost-effective dark store fulfillment to keep up with demand around the clock.
Temperature Monitoring
If you store food products that spoil easily or pharmaceutical drugs, cold storage, and monitoring is essential. The risk of losing valuable products due to temperature fluctuations is high and you can avoid costly mistakes by knowing exactly what happened to your products over time. The best way to do that is to use a cold storage automation solution with temperature monitoring built in, such as the intelligent manual, semi, and fully automated systems.
When you use a cold storage system with temperature monitoring, sensors track the air temperatures in refrigerators and other environments where your products are stored. The sensors are linked to alarms that alert staff when values are outside safe windows or other parameters like humidity. These sensor readings can be sent to a local PC, a gateway, or a cloud server that provides an overview of all data recorded by the device. Many manufacturers also offer software for system configuration, alarm management, and reporting.
Vaccines and other medications, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and lab equipment can get ruined when they experience extreme temperatures. This is not only bad for business, but it’s dangerous for employees. In fact, in 2021, 15 million Covid vaccine doses had to be thrown away because they got too warm. The same thing happens when lab products are shipped to their destination, and it’s a growing problem that costs businesses millions.
That’s why all cold storage solutions should include temperature monitoring. A reliable temperature monitoring system can protect your investment and help you avoid the costly consequences of spoiled goods, lawsuits, and lost customer trust.
Temperature monitoring also ensures compliance with regulations for handling medical and chemical products. Regulations specify temperature guidelines for storing medications and other sensitive materials. Cold storage systems with temperature monitoring are an essential part of any warehouse operation that specializes in these types of goods.
Security
Cold storage solutions can be designed to provide security in the form of physical or logical protection. Ideally, this is achieved by restricting access to equipment and its contents to people who have been vetted as trusted, such as employees of the storage facility or a company that owns the storage systems. It is also important to maintain required protocols such as GMP (good manufacturing practices) or those mandated by regulatory agencies like the FDA.
Businesses in sectors such as finance, healthcare, and legal are required to store data for years. Using cold storage solutions makes it cost-effective to store huge sets of data that would otherwise be too costly to move to online or production environments due to the performance requirements. In this way, businesses can make practical decisions about what to keep and what to get rid of as they manage their digital footprint.
The cost-effectiveness of cold storage can be enhanced by leveraging cloud-based technologies, as opposed to on-premise resources. In addition to being easier to manage, cloud-based cold storage offers additional levels of resiliency. For example, a provider provides low-cost archiving and backup services for dormant information. It can take several hours to retrieve data, but it is often more cost-effective than on-premise or cloud-based alternatives.
Some business leaders and small businesses may prefer to utilize a managed storage service, which can offer ongoing security monitoring. This can help ensure that the cold storage solution continues to comply with regulations and reduces the risk of legal liability in the event of breaches.
Cold storage warehouses can be challenging to operate, as they require a large investment in space and equipment. However, the use of automated handling systems can reduce the time operators spend in cold temperatures, as well as improve productivity and efficiency. This can also curb the negative effects on operator health caused by long periods of exposure to cold temperatures. As a result, many warehouses now employ cold storage automation to reduce labor costs and ensure continuous compliance with regulations.
