FedEx expands its SenseAware service for temperature-controlled shipping

As a complement to the temperature-controlled shipping of life sciences products, through its Healthcare Logistics and Custom Critical business units, FedEx (Memphis) has been developing a small electronic box, the SenseAware unit, to both record shipping conditions (temperature, pressure, light exposure and other factors) and location tracking, through GPS or cellular communications. Now, the company has announced that the service is now carrier-neutral, and available through Delta, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines and certain third-party ground carriers. Additionally, the service is available for trade lanes, including Canada, the UK, Australia and Singapore (and will be expanded further). Finally, the device itself is now in a second-generation form, the SenseAware 2000, which has longer battery life, improved GPS and cellular connectivity, and ability to perform geo-fencing (sending alerts when a shipment strays from a designated lane).

FedEx offers the SenseAware service for a monthly fee, with a return box to bring back the device at the end of a subscription. It says that clients have been gaining new insights into supply chain operations, such as identifying where products have gone out of temperature range, or where unscheduled delays have occurred in transit.