Cold Chain IoT Temperature Monitoring — Pharmaceutical & Food Logistics
A GPS + temperature monitoring system for a pharmaceutical cold chain across 150 refrigerated vehicles — catching 99.8% of temperature excursions before product spoilage, saving $2.3M in the first year.
⚠The Problem
A pharmaceutical logistics company was distributing temperature-sensitive vaccines and biologics across 150 refrigerated vehicles in Pakistan. Temperature excursions (product going outside 2–8°C range) were detected hours later when a driver or warehouse operative manually checked a paper log. By then, the product was compromised and had to be destroyed — costing $2.3M annually in product losses. WHO GDP compliance required temperature logs at ≤30-minute intervals, which was done manually.
💡Our Solution
We installed an IoT temperature logger in each vehicle: ESP32 with SIM7600 4G, high-accuracy STS31 temperature sensors (±0.1°C) at 3 points in the cargo compartment, GPS, and a door sensor. Data is published every 5 minutes (or immediately on excursion) to AWS IoT Core. A Lambda function detects any excursion from the 2–8°C range within 60 seconds of onset and fires SMS + dashboard alerts. InfluxDB stores complete temperature history at 5-minute resolution. The system auto-generates WHO GDP-compliant temperature excursion reports in PDF format, ready for submission to regulatory authorities.
🔗System Architecture
ESP32 Logger (4G) → MQTT → AWS IoT Core → Lambda (excursion detection) → InfluxDB + DynamoDB → React DashboardTech Stack
- ESP32 + SIM7600 4G module
- High-accuracy temp sensors (±0.1°C, STS31)
- Humidity sensor (SHT31)
- GPS module (u-blox)
- Door open sensor
- Backup battery (72-hour endurance)
- 4G LTE (primary)
- LoRaWAN backup in coverage gaps
- MQTT to AWS IoT Core
- SMS excursion alerts
- AWS IoT Core
- DynamoDB (excursion events)
- InfluxDB (temperature history)
- Lambda (excursion detection + alerts)
- React dashboard with live temperature + GPS map
- Excursion report generator (PDF)
- Regulatory audit trail viewer
Key Features
Results Delivered
- 99.8% of temperature excursions caught before product spoilage
- $2.3M estimated annual product loss avoidance
- WHO GDP compliance achieved — no manual logs required
- Average excursion detection time reduced from 4 hours to 60 seconds
- Insurance premium reduced 12% due to documented compliance record
Technologies
Who This Is For
Pharmaceutical distributors, vaccine logistics, food cold chain operators, blood banks
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Frequently Asked Questions
What technology does this cold chain iot temperature monitoring use?+
Cold Chain IoT Temperature Monitoring — Pharmaceutical & Food Logistics is built on ESP32, GPS, 4G LTE, React, Node.js. The stack was chosen for real-world reliability in a production deployment — full details are in the tech stack section.
Can CodeCaracal build a similar system for us?+
Yes. The same team that designed and deployed this pharmaceuticals / cold chain system takes on new projects across the stack — firmware, connectivity, cloud and dashboards. Tell us your requirements and we will architect a solution for your environment.
Is this case study a real deployed system?+
Yes — every case study on this site describes a production system we designed and shipped. The problem, architecture, features and metrics are from the actual deployment.
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