DHL expands cold chain network for healthcare sector in Europe

The Dollar Business Bureau

The new cold chain network is based on ‘CoolTrack’ platform that guarantees continuous temperature monitoring and GPS tracking.

  DHL Freight, the road freight arm within Deutsche Post DHL Group, has added three new certified life sciences and healthcare competency centres to its LTL (less than truckload) cold chain network. The new healthcare stations at Lyon (France), Milan (Italy) and Madrid (Spain), will help DHL to further extend its services for temperature controlled road freight shipments across Europe. Life sciences and healthcare industry primarily move cargo that are time-sensitive and required to be stored and transported under uniform and controlled temperature environment. Hence, keeping an eye on the logistics needs of this sector, the company has developed an integrated ‘solution suite’ which offers services specifically customised to fulfil their needs. It also offers an IT platform, CoolTrack that allows continuous monitoring and real-time tracking of cargo temperature via GPS. Giving details about the new service Amadou Diallo, CEO, DHL Freight has said, “Our customers in the life sciences and healthcare sector are looking for better ways to manage the risk of product damage and loss from temperature deviations in increasingly long and diverse supply chains. With DHL’s pan-European LTL cold chain network, we are embedding the new standard for cold-chain road freight transport further into Europe.” The dock centres in Milan and Lyon are certified against the European Good Distribution Practice (GDP), while the competency centre in Madrid is currently being audited and will receive its GDP certification shortly. The next competency centre in Budapest will be added to the network within the next couple of weeks. With this network expansion, DHL Freight addresses the growing demand coming from new life sciences and healthcare manufacturers in Southern and Eastern Europe. DHL’s cold chain service runs twice a week. The central routing of cargo takes place via the cross-docking centre in Mechelen (Belgium) from where shipments can be further transported under predefined temperature conditions (2–8° Celsius or 15–25° Celsius) to 30 countries in Europe. In recent years, temperature controlled products for the pharmaceutical industry have gained significant importance. The driving force is the new European GDP guideline, which puts the transport of temperature sensitive products under strict compliance requirements. In accordance with the new regulations, the industry is required to transport goods at temperature levels that are registered for storage conditions (‘ship-to-label’).  

June 18, 2015 | 06:27 pm IST.