Schiphol developing early warning system for pharma shippers

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is developing an early warning system which will alert pharma shippers when there has been an issue with their consignments. The system is being developed using a €1m subsidy awarded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), and TKI Dinalog, the Dutch Institute for Advanced Logistics.

The money will fund data collection and monitoring of Pharma Gateway Amsterdam (PGA) shipments in order to identify exceptions such as temperature incursions. This data will then be used to design a model to alert shippers about consignment issues.

Schiphol has teamed up with Air France KLM Cargo, Cargonaut, and PGA members for the project, which starts this month (March) with results expected later this year.

The Schiphol Cargo Community and Cargonaut will add performance management and alerting capabilities to the community Cloud; Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and Delft University of Technology will do the underlying research, contribute to the development, and measure the benefits for shippers and their transport suppliers.

“We are listening to shippers’ needs and working to improve transparency and cooperation in the pharma supply chain,” said Jonas van Stekelenburg, Cargo Director, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

“Pharma shippers are asking for more visibility so they can have confidence that their sensitive cargo is being handled safely through the supply chain and find solutions if there are issues such as temperature incursions.

“This research will enable us to develop a system capable of stepping up to those challenges.”