Cold Room Monitoring
What is Cold Room Monitoring?
Discover your ideal cold room monitoring solution
A temperature-controlled storage space that is designed to maintain a constant climate is more commonly referred to as a cold room. These rooms are commonly found in various organisations and research facilities across the medical and pharmaceutical industries. They do, however, also prove valuable in food production and storage applications, as well as seed growth and materials storage applications.
The purpose of a cold room is to help prevent spoilage, bacterial contamination and degradation of the stored product, sample or goods.
Cold room monitoring is a vital process that must be systematically adhered to, to conform to the governing regulatory bodies. Regardless of GMP, FDA, HACCP, MHRA or another regulatory body, the guidelines will often cover proper storage.
A cold room will usually have a walk-in capability and can be a converted space or a purpose-built chamber. Monitoring both environments is crucial for several reasons.
The perfect solution for cold room monitoring
Space and refrigeration monitoring of cold conditions
Regardless of whether you have a custom space converted into a cold room or a modular space that has been installed on your premises, ongoing monitoring systems are vital for:
Regulatory compliance: 21 CFR Part 11 requires auditable logs of temperature monitoring data
Conditions consistency: Samples and goods are protected during their storage, reducing potential waste
Quick identification of fluctuations: A safety baseline of real-time data will allow you to intervene as quickly as possible in events of potential degradation
Custom Cold Room Monitoring
A permanent or custom cold room is usually a pre-existing space in a facility that is converted into a cold room for a more accessible and scalable solution to temperature-sensitive storage. In these instances, the cold room monitoring system deployed will likely have to account for long-term use, flexibility and quick set up.
Prefabricated Cold Room Monitoring
A prefabricated cold room is a modular, pre-built system to offer businesses the ability to have a cold room in-house without the need to convert pre-existing space. the monitoring in this instance will often come 'built-in', as opposed to being designed to suit the unique needs of an already constructed space.
Important Elements of Cold Room Monitoring
Finding the right data logger or monitoring system usually depends on the sector your cold room sits within. Different industries have different applications of cold rooms within them, which makes the priority of cold room monitoring unique to each organisation or facility. Accuracy, reliability and compliance are all paramount, however, with advanced technology and state-of-the-art features, many businesses can choose a more intuitive interface or precise temperature range depending on the loggers.
Cold Rooms in the Food Industry
From restaurants, storage warehouses, commercial settings and manufacturing facilities, the food sector often stores raw materials, ingredients and finished products in cold rooms. Here, microbiological contamination is paramount and only preventable with proper monitoring. Door sensors, battery back up, real-time alerts and general control of temperature and humidity are vital.
Pharmaceutical and Other Manufacturing Settings
GMP, FDA, ICH and other regulatory authorities require proven procedures and processes to protect raw materials and final products, they also govern calibrations and standard of reading range. Cold room and chamber calibration must be performed to +/- 0.5°C in many circumstances where vital materials and products are manufactured for medical and healthcare environments.
Healthcare Cold Room Monitoring
Cold rooms are also prevalent in many healthcare settings including hospitals, pharmacies, vaccine storage facilities and biobanks. It is critical to have multiple alarm settings in these circumstances as well as a continuous/backup supply of power. Monitoring devices need remote accessibility and large battery life to ensure 24/7 remote monitoring.
Cold Room Monitoring Devices & Data Loggers
With any predominantly larger space comes the requirements for multiple access points. Mapping the entire space will provide you with insight into additional hot and cold spots that need close monitoring, from this, the right cold room monitoring approach will likely be made up of many data loggers working collaboratively to produce an accurate report of the entire space as well as it's vulnerable areas.
The effect that the door opening will have on the overall uniformity of temperature is also much larger with a cold room over a smaller chamber. This is why backup systems and real-time alerts are vital.
Scalable options are also of use to those looking for cold from monitoring systems, with the possibility of spaces continuing to expand and shelving units to increase, more access points may be required. Warehouses that can operate with thousands of sensors, for example.
Regardless of the sector, having an approach that can continue to provide the benefits of automation, precision, accuracy and reliability even as your monitored goods increase, is how you can achieve the very best productivity for your personnel.
