Faced with the shutdown of 3G, and the need to guarantee food safety, a train operator turned to AFSTC to develop a custom remote temperature monitoring solution.
Introduction
AFSTC is an Australian technology company which specialises in automated food temperature monitoring and remote temperature control solutions. Established in 2015, their technology is used to monitor refrigerated environments where temperature control and monitoring is critical – including supermarkets, restaurants of pharmacies.
The train operator uses food carriages for in-train catering. They must meet stringent food safety and compliance standards. This includes food stored on trains and in its network of fridges and freezers at stations.
Challenge
To maintain food standards, fridge and freezer temperatures must be measured at regular intervals each day. Fridges must be maintained below 4 °C and freezers must operate at -18 °C. If these temperatures are not maintained food must be disposed of and replaced.
The train operators’ existing system had relied on in-carriage and “at station” sensors with a digital display. This meant batteries powering the temperature sensors could fail and needed to be replaced from time to time.
Solution
AFSTC designed a custom solution known as Guardian. To do this, they partnered with M2M Connectivity and M2M One to source and design a more efficient and reliable 4G solution – with a focus on ease of deployment and maintenance.
At the heart of the solution is the ELA Innovation Bluetooth PUK, which is distributed by M2M Connectivity in Australia. The PUK is designed for harsh industrial environments, has a transmission range of up to 500m and a battery life of up to 20 years. The Guardian system utilises M2M One 4G industrial IoT SIMS.
The final solution, which can be installed in less than two minutes, combines an AFSTC Guardian box with the sensors. Temperature information is relayed every fifteen minutes and accessed via a cloud-based application.