Air cargo delivery models with tracking capabilities for COVID vaccine distribution
Delivering billions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the world’s population is perhaps the largest single transportation challenge the air cargo industry will ever face.
Air cargo is on the mission of the century – COVID-19 vaccine distribution. The air cargo industry is under pressure to execute an unprecedented worldwide distribution effort. The figures are staggering; Pfizer intends to produce up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021, while Moderna expects to manufacture approximately 500 million to one billion doses in 2021. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that it will take the equivalent of 8,000 Boeing 747 flights to carry enough single-dose vaccinations to inoculate the globe’s 7.8 billion people—a monumental task. With more than eight hand-offs before the vaccine reaches the end consumer—including manufacturers, logistics service providers (LSPs), ground handling agents (GHAs), air carriers, last-mile distributors, and medical professionals—the temperature-sensitive COVID-19 vaccines will be subjected to multiple touchpoints across disparate data collection systems.
IATA estimates that it will take the equivalent of 8,000 Boeing 747 flights to carry enough singledose vaccinations to inoculate the globe’s 7.8 billion people—a monumental task
Unfortunately, traditional data logging doesn’t deliver the seamless visibility required to enable manufacturers or LSPs to make decisions about pharmaceutical shipments in transit. Without realtime visibility into shipment location and status across the entire supply chain, vaccines can be subjected to degradation, diversion, and even loss. In fact, IATA reported that 25 per cent of all vaccines are degraded when they reached their destination due to improper shipping, while 20 per cent of temperature-sensitive products are damaged during transport due to a broken cold chain. Vaccines are to be monitored at all levels; right from shipment to transportation and storage, all stages are to be covered. To ensure the delivery of vaccines to every nook and corner of the globe, the following elements are essential.
DIGITAL DOCUMENTATION
Where does the entire game of stagnation and delays occur? Well, everybody knows that documentation on a manual scale is the culprit. A community platform such as a cargo community system enables the generation of electronic documents such as electronic air-way bill, electronic delivery order for airlines, to name a few. Therefore, the entire operations in the airport ecosystem are rapid as well as automated.
END-TO-END TRACKING
Recent Internet of Things (IoT) advancements have transformed the landscape of the pharmaceutical supply chain to provide seamless end-to-end location tracking and monitoring. Next-generation sensor-based tracking tags attached to shipments provide a range of real-time data (e.g., location, temperature, humidity, light) to determine the status of goods and if conditions are deteriorating and/or intervention is required. Adding further resilience to the tracking and data capture process, low-cost mesh networks can be deployed across the logistics chain in airports, air cargo stations, loading/unloading docks, etc. to automatically capture the movement and status of shipments. Data is transmitted from multiple nodes to active gateways to provide overlapping coverage and close any visibility gaps.
LEVERAGING PREDICTIVE CAPABILITIES
Predicting demand/supply gaps has become the norm with the utility of AI/ML and IoT. In a nutshell, it can even be said that the pandemic and lockdown could have been thwarted if we had a predictive mechanism in place. Now, the general industry outlook has changed and that is quite visible in the delivery models set by each country. A predictive mechanism is needed to foresee challenges, for example, a vaccine truck fleet is being sent to a remote location by road and heavy rainfall followed by a landslide is predicted for the region. So, through the common monitoring portal, the authorities can halt the fleet movement until the rain subsides. This way, loss of cargo is thwarted, and it reflects on the well-informed nature of the authorities.
AIRPORT CARGO COMMUNITY SYSTEM
The Airport Cargo Community System (ACS) takes into consideration all future needs for the air cargo industry. The ACS system connects all stakeholders in the supply chain, right from pharma companies, airlines, temperaturecontrolled facilities suppliers, freight forwarders, temperature-controlled transport service providers for uninterrupted services and data flow to the end users. When the shipments are at the airport, ACS tracks the temperature excursions and provides alerts through interfaces with the warehouse temperature sensors. Furthermore, with several features like advance shipment information to the handlers, online terminal charges payments, e-AWB, e-Certificate of Origin, truck slot bookings, the processing of pharma shipments/vaccines is expedited. The AI/ML technologies are used to predict data and conditions for the stakeholder. Traffic conditions, load/unload times, transit times, clearance times are all predicted to ensure there is very little ambiguity.
WORKING TOGETHER
Delivering billions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the world’s population is perhaps the largest single transportation challenge the air cargo industry will ever face. By deploying common tracking technology, promoting open network connectivity, and standardising data for a true end-to-end view, the cold chain logistics community will help to ensure a safe, secure, and efficient supply chain.