Cold Chain Management

This text helps readers to build a solid understanding of the key concepts in the management and operation of supply chains involving chilling, refrigeration or freezing. Emphasis is placed on environmental—particularly temperature—control as important in avoiding irreversible damage to product quality and safety and the resulting loss of profit and consumer confidence. The authors explain the important issues arising within the supply chain of perishable goods from production to consumption: topics that include planning and design, instrumentation and methods of implementation, and process monitoring and control.

Reminding the student that cold supply chains are essential for the supply of products more various than foods, product-specific studies and examples are included for handling bananas and vaccines. The importance of product traceability and automation are highlighted.

Myo Min Aung is a lecturer in Rajamangala university of Technology Thanyaburi in Thailand. Yoon Seok Chang is a professor in Korea Aerospace University. Their area of work is much concerned with supply chain management, in particular, cold chain logistics. Since 2007, they have participated in research and development projects that relate to cold chain management. The first project was "Smart Cold Chain Management (SCCM) " supported by Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Republic of Korea. The objective is to develop smart cold chain technologies and services for high value-added perishable goods. The project consists of key areas from the selection and adoption of sensing and ID technologies to development of cold chain networks service framework, adoption of application technologies and testbed deployment for industry adoption.

Another project was "Development of Light Weight Smart Material Handling Equipment" funded by Ministry of Land, Transport and Infrastructure, Republic of Korea. The key research topic in this project was smart material handling equipment which can store and pick up product automatically.  Many cases, cold chain storage requires lower temperature constantly and such requirement is not good for workers’ health as well as work efficiency. In such cases, an automated material handling system can be more useful than manual work.

The authors are currently engaging in a research project (ID:1525011943) titled “Development of low-cost seafood storage showcase” funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, Republic of Korea".

Dr. Aung received his PhD from Korea Aerospace University (2013). Dr. Aung's Ph.D. thesis titled "Implementation of quality control and assurance methods for a climacteric fruit in cold chain" is also important work. He is currently working as a lecturer in the Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering Department at the Faculty of Technical Education, Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi (RMUTT) in Thailand. Formerly, he worked as a research professor at Korea Aerospace University (KAU) in South Korea after completing his PhD in Logistics there. He is a certified Kaizen consultant of the Myanmar Productivity Centre (MPC). His research interests include Logistics, SCM, POM, Automation, Robotics and IoT.

Dr. Chang is a director of the Ubiquitous Technology Application Research Center and a professor in the School of Air Transport & Logistics at Korea Aerospace University. Professor Chang received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering (focus: Manufacturing System) from Imperial College London (1997). After completion of his PhD, he was a visiting professor of Arizona State University, USA; a senior application engineer at i2 technologies (currently Blue Yonder), USA;  a senior research associate of Auto-ID Center, University of Cambridge, UK; Visiting Professor of KAIST Korea; and a Visiting Professor of Caltech, USA. His research interests are supply chain management; manufacturing system; intra-logistics automation and human factors.

Both authors have published many papers in conferences and journals in the areas of cold chain and cold chain management.