Frozen material

Problem

You recognize the package in the freezer of the store: best before ... if kept in freezer ***. On a warm summer day you left the package for an hour in the trunk, how is it now with this 'best before'?

Each manufacturer handling frozen material, will have the same problem. At which moment can we tell a product is no longer 'good'. Pharmaceuticals who use a component holding cel material for their product, will thaw and freeze each time they use the component. But this obviously not an infinite times.

Solution

It is most of the times very easy to describe the rules to determine when a package becomes 'suspicious'. It would be something like: 3 months in the freezer, 2 weeks in the fridge and 3 days in ambient. But easy rules become difficult to control when you have to apply them on many items at a time, such as 1000 packages... And that's the point where a computer can be very useful.

PROMES software can track each package. How long a package is in-or out its normal storage conditions, and calculate the thermal cycle.

One of the nice advantages is that PRODBX (the connectivity layer) will make the time-zone adjustment when transporting the package from Europe to USA. When leaving Europe, PRODBX will send an e-mail with XML attachment to its companion PRODBX in the USA. Since all time factors are calculated based on standard time, we won't have problems with the time difference.

Bottom line?

Quality assurance  - how much is it worth. What's the price your company pays for a recall of suspicious product.