COVID-19 vaccine track and traceability system

Abstract

Logistics and supply chain play a very important role in business and industry these decades. Track and Traceability is one of the key components in making supply and chain more efficient. Furthermore, in Healthcare supply chain, Track and Traceability must be in place to ensure the safety of patients at the downstream. While all sectors in the world have the massive impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is starting to realize the importance of vaccine and it eventually becomes the only hope of the humanity. Hence, the vaccine supply chain becomes the major concerns in the Healthcare sectors. Temperature control throughout the supply chain activities e.g. storage, transportation and distribution are vital. Thus, not only tracking location and activity, temperature must also be monitored. Each of every vaccine has its own storage temperature in order to remain its quality and efficiency. One of the examples is our expectation COVID-19 vaccine. The sources reveal that the temperature storage range can be varied from -70 to 25 degree Celsius. From the authors’ previous research, we identified problems about the supply chain and the certain requirement for the storage temperature of vaccine. Then, we invented the substitution of traditional ice pack used in nowadays’ transportation to the liquid nitrogen cooling system. The research was concluded that liquid nitrogen has better performance in both terms of temperature stabilization and the period of time keeping temperature within desired range. However, our previous Vaccine Cold Box by Liquid Nitrogen did not have the ability to track and trace the location nor monitoring the temperature real time. Thus, in this study, an effort is made to develop the COVID-19 Vaccine Track and Traceability System. Firstly, the IOT system will be implemented. RFID tag with temperature sensor will be applied in the cold box. Then, the reader will collect the data and send to cloud server. At this point, the temperature data will be forwarded into two directions. One is to control the solenoid valve which is located in the cold box for releasing liquid nitrogen to the right amount wanted. Another is to display and collect the real time temperature at the Dash board for the temperature monitoring. Moreover, the previous study’s calculation process has shown that there is another factor related to the length of time vaccine cold box could maintain temperature within range. It is the Thermal conductivity rate of the material used for the exterior of the cold box. We can easily increase the length of time by using the material with lower Thermal conductivity rate. After the cold box is built, we will set experiments to test the efficiency of the system, collect and analyze the data before the conclusion is reached.