Why choose a pre-qualified shipping system?
At some point when designing a supply chain, a system for transporting the product must be developed or selected from available shipping system vendors. The most straightforward and least time intensive option is selecting a pre-qualified shipping solution from a vendor so that the quality and efficacy of the shipping solution is already confirmed. Therefore, after confirmation that the vendor’s qualification is satisfactory and meets your User Requirement Specifications (URS) or shipping requirements, the shipping solution can easily be implemented into the supply chain.
How to know which shipping system to use?
When selecting a pre-qualified shipping solution for your supply chain, it is important to know what to ask the shipping system’s manufacturer to understand if and how all your needs are being met. Before selecting a shipping solution, User Requirement Specifications (URS) should be established. The URS specifies the needs of the supply chain and outlines the minimum and maximum requirements of the shipping system.
Appropriate shipping solutions can be narrowed down once the basic criteria of the shipping system are determined. These can include, but are not limited to:
- Payload temperature requirement
- Minimum qualified duration
- Maximum required payload size
- Minimum required payload size
- Shipper type (active vs passive, seasonal packout vs universal packout)
- Cost of Shipping System
What should be in a vendor qualification package?
Once the basic criteria are met, further investigation into the vendor’s qualification package can begin. The qualification package should include, but are not limited to:
- Thermal profile used for qualification
- Distribution profile used for qualification, if available
- Qualification data
- Qualified duration of the shipping system
- Packout and Payload(s) used during qualification
- Temperature probe placement (including worst-case location, if available)
- Stability data reports, if available
The qualification package should be reviewed to ensure that the vendor qualification is satisfactory for the supply chain. The shipping system selected should be reviewed by a cross-functional team to ensure that all requirements are met.
What can Lean Biologix do to help?
The LBX team has extensive experience with shipper qualifications. LBX can evaluate pre-qualified shippers and write a technical report for a customer’s review while being compliant with the current industry and regulatory standards. Should a vendor’s qualification package be insufficient LBX can develop, evaluate, execute, and summarize simulation testing for the customer. LBX can also help develop and preliminarily test shipping solutions with a Design Qualification (DQ). In this way, LBX can help successfully demonstrate a shipping system’s ability to protect product from physical damage and maintain thermal shipping requirements. See the Operational Qualification (OQ) Testing Services tab on the LBX website for more information.