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If you are among those who suspect an inappropriate transport monitoring, this article is for you!
We will tell you the secret story behind some of our data loggers, including the BlueLog and the TempNFC. In fact, we added a very important function in these devices to avoid the fraud risk related to transport monitoring.
The anti-tamper function
The anti-tamper function (anti-tampering) allows you to monitor if the data logger has been moved from the location where it was installed.
Interesting ... but what is it for? What is the practical implication?
And why does it reduce the fraud risk?
The story of the negligent track driver
One day, a truck driver was hired by a logistics company to deliver a shipment of frozen food to a supermarket.
As agreed, technicians from the logistics company installed a data logger on his truck to constantly measure the temperature.
Continuous monitoring is essential for this type of transport. Frozen products cannot be defrosted and then refrozen. In fact, in addition to lose their nutritional properties, they are subject to contamination of the bacterial flora, which reactivates at high temperatures, multiplying and making the food dangerous to health.
This is why it is important that during transport temperatures always remain within an acceptable threshold, calculated by the data logger with a complex formula called MKT.
The truck driver realized that this little electronic instrument measured the temperature. So, an idea came to his mind.
He removed the data logger from its wall support and closed it in a portable refrigerator for food. In the meantime, he disabled the freezing of the cold room. In this way he would have saved the energy needed for refrigeration, reducing transport costs and therefore earning more money.
No one would have noticed the fraud: the data logger would have continued to record optimal temperatures.
Shortly before delivery, the truck driver reactivated the refrigeration of the cell, removed the data logger from the cooler and put it back in its place.
On the delivery day, the supermarket workers unloaded the truck. Frozen foods, which had previously been exposed to temperatures well above the tolerance threshold, ended up on the shelves with their dangerous bacterial load.
Nobody noticed anything, since the data logger had recorded a perfect temperature all the way ...
… But then the anti-tamper function came into play
The logistics company decided to commit a new shipment to the truck driver. This time, however, they equipped themselves with Tecnosoft's anti-tamper system.
The experts installed a data logger with a support that enveloped it like a mobile phone cover. The support was firmly fixed on the wall of the cold room, while the data logger could be easily removed.
The truck driver didn't mind, so he removed the data logger from its support, placed it in the cooler, and turned off the refrigeration of the load.
A few minutes later a call came from the logistics company. The cold chain manager asked the track driver to put back immediately the logger in its place.
How did he found out? The truck driver never knew. However, this was enough to prevent him from doing the trick again and delivering spoiled food once again without anyone noticing.
How the Anti-tamper system for data logger works
- The wall support is fixed to the wall with double-sided adhesive or screws and plugs, so that it cannot be removed.
- The data logger is put into the wall support. In that moment the Anti-tamper function actives.
- The data logger instructs itself to recognize only its wall support.
- If the data logger is removed from the support, it sends an alarm message to the monitoring application.
- Even if removed from the support, the data logger will continue to send monitoring data, until the the operators verify what happened.
What advantages does it bring to logistics?
- It allows continuous and secure monitoring of the cold chain without fear of fraud
- It ensures the monitoring recording of data at the installation place
- It ensures the preservation at the correct conditions of transported goods
Anti-tamper data logger: a real case of application
An important logistics company with a large order of chocolate eggs decided to equip itself with hundreds of TempNFC for monitoring the transportation but the problem arises, precisely, of the possibility of moving the loggers from their location. Therefore they ask Tecnosoft to create aTempNFC version with a function that allows you to see when the device is out of its place.
Tecnosoft analysed the various possibilities and finally developed what we now call the anti-tamper function, it was first implemented on contactless loggers and then also on BlueLog, for real-time data monitoring.
If you want more information contact us.
You can also create your own BlueLog version with just the functions you need (BlueLog Custom).
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