Global Challenges & Solutions: Reducing Components, Complexity & Cost

How do you reduce the complexity and cost of your packaging, without sacrificing the performance? Is it possible to create a unified approach to packaging solutions? How can pharma progress with respect to ocean freight? Jean-Pierre Emond Ph.D., Director of Cold Chain Research at Georgia Tech Research Institute, has over 25 years teaching experience of cold chain, packaging systems. In this exclusive Cold Chain IQ interview Andrea Charles he discusses capability gaps in the temperature controlled supply, developments in cold chain ocean freight and understanding the purpose and function of each cold chain packaging component in order to find the right packaging solution. Emond also shares his insights on the key global challenges of packaging temperature sensitive life science shipments, and the solutions available.

Cold Chain IQ: In your opinion, what is driving the changes we are seeing in the cold chain industry?

Jean-Pierre Emond: We see that users are becoming more knowledgeable about what can challenge a cold chain process. Before, when we were talking about packaging, it was little packages. Now we’re talking about a global approach to cold chain handling, which is great. Process, temperature monitoring, qualification, validation of solution, and control improvement are an integral part of the cold chain management program.

This increase in knowledge is causing the users to become more savvy shoppers for packaging, handling and logistic services, because you realize that packaging is only a small part of the cold chain. When we talk about cold chain, people usually think about a Styrofoam box, but we are far from that now. People have moved on and are so much more knowledgeable.

They also realize that training is a very important part. This is something that we didn’t see before, but going to events like the Global Forum, they get more training, and after that they bring this knowledge to their companies, because we have to realize that 90% of the cold chain problems occurring are caused by human errors. So by putting more emphasis on training, which is great, they can avoid these kinds of problems. I would say that this is what is driving the change in the cold chain industry.

Cold Chain IQ: What developments have you seen in cold chain ocean freight, and what would you say are the biggest hurdles or capability gaps in the cold chain that lie ahead?

JP Emond: The ocean industry is becoming more aware of the specific requirements of the pharmaceutical and biological cold chain industry. This is very new for them. And one of the things that we see is that the current refrigerated sea containers required power in order to maintain their required temperature. The refrigeration systems worked with electricity. During the loading and unloading at the port, these containers needed to be unplugged in order to be transferred out of the ship. This means that the refrigerated system doesn’t work. So it’s closing a gap in the cold chain. The timeframe during that event, where they don’t have any power, you can have a significant break in the cold chain.

There are new technologies that address this issue coming into the market. But because we are at the infant stage of shipping cold chain pharmaceuticals via the ocean, many parties, such as the ocean carrier, or even the pharmaceutical company, the port authority, the people that handle your goods, the customers, they all have to be aware now, because they didn’t see that very often.

And after that, the insurance company, because we’re talking about much more high value product, and also the equipment supplier, they need to work together. This is a big change in the industry. These parties will need to collaborate more to make sure that the shipping method works for the requirements of the pharmaceutical products.

They have to understand their own roles. All these people never really had to get together to make sure that they had a perfect cold chain, but everybody has their role to play. A good example is that the ocean carriers are not used to shipping these high value shipments and the insurance industry has to come in now, and the pharmaceutical companies need to prove that ocean is a very reliable method.

In fact, it’s an extremely reliable method of shipping. Of course, we need some common sense. Just because we have big sea containers that can fit more than $40 million worth of pharmaceutical product, we don't have to fill the whole container. We have to have some common sense there. But it is a very good technology, and also for many companies, it will become just a regular part of their logistic chain, but we are still at the infant age of this industry, and all the parties have to get together in order to understand what their roles are.

This is what I would say that is the new development in cold chain ocean freight. [inlinead] Cold Chain IQ: What do you think will have the biggest impact on the cold chain in 2015?

JP Emond: I think what will have the biggest impact is what will touch the most amount of people. And when we talk about cold chain, in fact, it’s temperature control products. The control room temperature products are almost more than 90% of all shipments. And their range of temperature is usually between 15 to 20 Celsius. Now we are pushing the industry and the regulation to increase this range from 2 degrees to 30 degrees. That’s a much wider range, and it will greatly benefit the industry, by increasing the range of temperatures for CRT products that can be shipped, transported and stored, and then then pharmaceutical products of 2 to 8 Celsius will be possible.

This is a problem sometimes, in that we have this CRT product, and we also have this product that needs to be between 2 and 8. So we were having to separate them. Now we can ship them together.

And by increasing this range of temperature, maybe some packaging requirements for this shipment might be a little bit lighter in terms of cost, but also in terms of components, because we allowed a larger range of temperature. So by touching more than 90% of all the shipments made with temperature control products, that will have a major impact on the industry in terms of easier shipping and also probably significant cost reductions too.

So that will be something very significant.

Cold Chain IQ: What are some of the key global challenges of packaging temperature sensitive life science shipments, and the solutions available?

JP Emond: I think that this reflects where the pharmaceutical industry is going. By having a global approach, we see that supply chains come from different locations in the world, so we see that the company may have, in many continents, different production sites, and they have to move these products.

So now we are dealing with different regions of the world, and that causes many challenges that need to be considered, such as environmental conditions. Sometimes, you can be in the summer in one location in the world, and winter in another location. We also have a lot of issues with customs regulations in different countries. This is where your global approach in cold chain comes into play, so packaging requirements and shipping times and cost have to be taken into account.

The big shift that we see is that now we have a global approach, everybody is trying to harmonize their solutions around the world, because now we ship everywhere. So being conscious of the environmental impact should also be considered. Many countries are pushing for more reusable packaging components, some are even banned, some components that they want to make sure that you recycle this product, and you know where it’s going to go. You don’t just fill the landfill with them.

I would say that the trend would be that we have a standard packaging system, or mode of transportation that can be used in various countries, becoming more prevalent, and we see that a lot, that people are trying to centralize all their resources to have a much more consistent way of shipping around the world. That’s the trend that we see going towards.

Cold Chain IQ: You are speaking at the 12th Annual Cold Chain GDP and Temperature Management Logistics Global Forum and also leading one of the key workshops there. What do you hope to achieve in your workshop? And what do you think participants will learn at this session?

JP Emond: This workshop, it’s a dream come true, because for many years we wanted to prepare something based on our findings over the years. And in this workshop we will address the significance of each cold chain packaging component in order to build a cost effective, easy to use, and functional temperature sensitive packaging system.

And you know what, the simpler the better. Simple modification will allow your package to be shipped year round, by allowing a complete position of everything you have. So the participant will understand the purpose of each component, in order to know which one will allow them to achieve their goal.

In the packaging system, each component has a specific role. If you understand it better, it means that if you’re looking for a very specific temperature range, which component will allow you that? Or if you want to reduce costs, you need to know which component is the most expensive part, and what you can do about it. Or the weight of the package.

So they will learn how simple changes can take a packaging system from a cold or a hot environment temperature, and how you can modify your current packaging system while planning for a long term optimization.

First you try to just make it, to make sure that you provide the protection for your product. Now we’re going to learn how to push it further by optimizing, reducing your cost, and operating more efficiently. So the people who are going to the session will learn, and will become savvier shoppers for packaging systems and supplies. They will learn how they can reduce some of the components, the complexity of the packages, without sacrificing the performance of their packages.

We’re going to show that some of the components that you think are very important, sometimes don’t bring very much. They only bring cost. But they don’t bring much to the performance of your package. So all these little details that seem so simple play a much bigger role, they can understand that the dimension, the shape of your box that you choose, the shape and the location of some of your ice packs make a huge difference.

And you have to be aware of that, because sometimes you can spend too much money with no real performance or good results. The workshop attendees are going to learn all these things, and that’s really a dream come true for us, to have the chance to present this information in the workshop.

Cold Chain IQ: Why was it important for you to speak at the Global Forum?

JP Emond: It’s all related to my life, I have been teaching at many universities for more than 25 years about cold chain, packaging systems and so for us, it’s very important. The Global Forum allows us to educate the industry. We know that education is key to a savvier world, where people are more knowledgeable and they bring much more to the table when we discuss the topic.

We know that this knowledge is crucial. We take the Global Forum very seriously. We will perform specific tests in order to present never seen before data. We make a big commitment to make sure that every time that we go to this forum, we present information that nobody has seen before.

We really customize every single presentation and workshop. We also allow time that the participant can interact during the presentation and workshops for a specific issue, because we know that it’s very specific to many products, to location, or a different kind of business, so we allow times where people can interact more with us for a specific issue, and we can bring all this information that we have built for almost 12 months to present something new, and so people have the feeling that when they went to these sessions, workshops, or whatever, they learn something that they can bring back to their company.

So this is how important the Global Forum is for us. I want to thank you so much for your time. We look forward to hearing much more from you at the event.

JP Emond: We are very excited to be there, and I hope that people will go there and be very prepared to learn a lot, and bring a lot back to their work.