coldchain home / Playbook
Logistics / practical steps
Plan a traceable cold-chain handoff
A process worksheet for recording product requirements, monitoring evidence and exception ownership.
STEP 01
Start with the product specification
Obtain the approved storage and transport conditions from the product owner. Record the acceptable range, permitted duration, packaging method and any product-specific restrictions. Do not borrow temperature settings from a different product or treat a generic checklist as a validated shipping method.
STEP 02
Map every handoff
List packing, staging, collection, transit, receiving and storage. Name the person responsible at each boundary and record expected dwell time. Include weekends and failed delivery attempts; these are often where a nominally short journey becomes a long exposure.
STEP 03
Plan the monitoring record
Agree which device or indicator is used, its identifier, placement instructions and how readings are retrieved. Keep calibration or verification evidence where required by your procedure. Check that time zones and timestamps can be interpreted consistently across the journey.
STEP 04
Prepare the exception route
Define who reviews an excursion and what information they need. Hold affected goods under the applicable procedure until an authorised decision is recorded. Do not silently reset an alarm, discard a reading or release stock merely because the final reading looks normal.
Choose the right next step
- Routine shipment: use the approved packaging and monitoring procedure for that exact product.
- Delayed handoff: escalate against the documented limits rather than improvising a new acceptable range.
- Missing readings: record the evidence gap and route it to the authorised reviewer.
Worked example
A receiving team discovers a gap in logger data. It records the shipment ID, logger ID, handoff times and missing interval, then follows the product owner’s exception procedure. It does not infer that the shipment was acceptable from a single arrival reading.
Reference and further reading
WHO: storage and transport of temperature-sensitive products