Logimed USA 2024: UPS and Trackonomy’s Journey During COVID-19

Logimed Keynote: Trackonomy & UPS

Daniel Gagnon, Vice President of Strategy at UPS Healthcare, and Dr. Erik Volkerink, CEO of Trackonomy Systems, recently presented the keynote discussion at the LogiMed USA 2024 Conference. The conference was hand-selected by both teams as an opportunity to tell the story of their partnership during the peak of COVID, a story previously kept confidential.
UPS Healthcare, a leader in healthcare logistics and supply chain solutions, partnered with Trackonomy Systems, a pioneer in advanced asset tracking technologies, to streamline the distribution process and enhance visibility across the vaccine supply chain. “This really required two teams working together with a level of intensity that can only almost be justified by a global pandemic to figuring out a different way to enable the real-time supply chain,” Volkerink said.
The pandemic led to a prioritization of global distribution for COVID-19 vaccines, presenting an unprecedented logistical challenge with 100,000+ recorded COVID cases per day, requiring precise coordination and management of vaccine doses to ensure timely delivery and maximum efficacy. As a result of the partnership Trackonomy was able to integrate with over 20+ Healthcare customers, each with over 1,500 vaccine shipments daily, growing the company by 20x in only 6 months to support the UPS effort to combat COVID worldwide.

Challenges of COVID

• Enhanced Cold Chain Management: Real-time temperature monitoring and alerts enabled UPS Healthcare to maintain the integrity of the vaccine cold chain, ensuring that vaccine doses remained within the required temperature range from production to administration.
• Improved Visibility and Transparency: Geolocation tracking provided UPS Healthcare with unprecedented visibility and transparency across the vaccine supply chain, enhancing trust and accountability among stakeholders.
• Efficient Inventory Management: Data analytics tools facilitated optimized inventory management, allowing UPS Healthcare to anticipate demand, prevent stockouts, and minimize vaccine wastage throughout the distribution process.
• Secure Traceability: Liquid computing allowed for increased security and authenticity of vaccine doses, mitigating the risk of counterfeiting and unauthorized diversion while bolstering confidence in the safety and efficacy of the vaccination campaign.

Results

The implementation of Trackonomy’s smart tape solution helped UPS Healthcare achieve significant improvements in its COVID-19 vaccine distribution effort, ensuring the efficient, secure, and transparent delivery of vaccine doses to millions of people worldwide with a 99.9% on time delivery.

• Enhanced Cold Chain Management: Real-time temperature monitoring and alerts enabled UPS Healthcare to maintain the integrity of the vaccine cold chain, ensuring that vaccine doses remained within the required temperature range from production to administration.
• Improved Visibility and Transparency: Geolocation tracking provided UPS Healthcare with unprecedented visibility and transparency across the vaccine supply chain, enhancing trust and accountability among stakeholders.
• Efficient Inventory Management: Data analytics tools facilitated optimized inventory management, allowing UPS Healthcare to anticipate demand, prevent stockouts, and minimize vaccine wastage throughout the distribution process.
• Secure Traceability: Liquid computing allowed for increased security and authenticity of vaccine doses, mitigating the risk of counterfeiting and unauthorized diversion while bolstering confidence in the safety and efficacy of the vaccination campaign.

Through Trackonomy’s real-time platform, UPS Healthcare was able to optimize cold chain management, enhance visibility and transparency, improve inventory management, and ensure the authenticity and traceability of vaccine doses throughout the supply chain. The successful collaboration between UPS Healthcare and Trackonomy Systems exemplifies the crucial role of innovative asset-tracking technologies in addressing global healthcare challenges and advancing public health initiatives.

The Future of Trackonomy

Trackonomy shows no signs of slowing down. The company’s success with Fortune 35 global giant UPS proved Trackonomy’s integrative abilities, with its infrastructure in thousands of UPS buildings globally, a 300+ plane fleet, and 90,000+ package cars. Trackonomy continues to innovate to solve logistics and asset management problems across industrial, healthcare, and government sectors, with its solutions spanning asset diagnostics, temperature control, shock readout, and whether an asset is simply off-track.

References

1. “UPS Healthcare.” UPS. https://www.ups.com/us/en/services/healthcare.page
2. “UPS Premier.” UPS. https://www.ups.com/us/en/services/premier.page
3. “Trackonomy Systems.” Trackonomy. https://www.trackonomy.com/
4. “UPS Vaccine Distribution.” CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/15/ups-cfo-on-vaccine-distribution-in-near-term-us-economy.html
5. “Top 6 Supply Chain Startups to Watch 2021”. Trackonomy. https://www.globaltrademag.com/top-6-supply-chain-startups-to-watch-out-for-in-2021/