Why Environmental Monitoring Will Be Important In 2021

Environmental monitoring has protected you and your family in ways that you may not be aware of. For example, sensitive products such as food and medications are carefully monitored in all types of conditions to ensure that they get to the marketplace and consumers while they can still be used without the threat of spoilage. In 2021, environmental monitoring will be a vital component in the delivery of a vaccine to combat the coronavirus. In this article, we will explore that and other factors that will bring environmental monitoring to the fore in the next year.

Supply Chain Stress

There are many ways in which environmental monitoring can assist in dealing with supply chain stress. This form of stress is when production of a product cannot keep up with the demand for orders of it. The COVID-19 vaccine will likely result in supply chain stress. But environmental monitoring can help keep new product shipments flowing and keeping up with demand. Shipments of sensitive inventory can be fed into the supply chain and environmentally monitored to ensure they remain compliant, before moving to distribution centers or retail locations for consumers to access.

Budget Constraints

Compliance is an expensive word for many industries. It can be costly to ensure the protection of products and avoid loss or spoilage of those products. For example, proper temperatures must be maintained in storage facilities that house perishable products on the way to the market. These conditions must be met at every step of the supply chain, from  point of manufacture to distribution and placement where consumers can access them. If even one step of the supply chain conditions is compromised, the cost of compliance increases through financial losses. This includes stock replacement and, depending on the product and industry, fines for not maintaining proper storage conditions. This is why environmental monitoring is vital to the delivery of sensitive assets.

COVID-19 Vaccine

More than one vaccine is in the works to address this pandemic. To ensure the vaccine is effective, it must get to clinics and hospitals without being spoiled. Vaccines use microbes in various combinations that work within your body to build up immunity to certain diseases. For a vaccine to work, it must remain active, which requires storage in a cool environment from the moment it is created to when the vaccine enters your body via a needle. This means that vaccines are temperature-sensitive and when they become warm beyond specific temperatures, the vaccine loses its effectiveness. Environmental monitoring of the COVID-19 vaccine will be a major factor in its effectiveness next year. As Dickson notes here, vaccines are among the most sensitive products that benefit from a comprehensive approach to environmental monitoring through properly calibrated data loggers.

Foodborne Illnesses

One of the most important benefits of environmental monitoring is that it can prevent the distribution of foodborne illnesses by keeping food safe for consumers to use. Guidelines set out by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), and enforced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), outline how to regulate conditions to keep food safe and protect those who come in contact with it. Because the majority of illnesses that can result from spoiled food products are preventable, the use of environmental monitoring systems keeps food safety under control. It also means that such applications not only stop the development of foodborne illnesses, but proper monitoring devices reduce the spread of  such illnesses.

Other Benefits of Environmental Monitoring That Will Keep Us Safe In 2021

A well-organized and executed environmental monitoring plan will provide many benefits to the companies that implement them. Here is a look at a few of the key ones.

Sanitation Program Safety

Monitors such as data loggers will assist in the verification and validation of the procedures and frequency of cleaning and sanitation processes.

Proactive Response

With the correct monitoring system in place, data collected will give companies information on issues as they develop so that remedies can be put in place before product loss takes place.

Maintenance Schedule

Although there should be a regular repair schedule in place, monitors can tip you off to required maintenance that can be dealt with right away, preventing it from being discovered in an audit.

Controlling Conditions 

An environmental monitoring program provides a baseline of conditions present in a facility. When the monitors indicate changes to those conditions, it means something has happened that requires immediate attention.

 Affordable Protection

When you use the tools that assist in protecting sensitive assets, you save money. The cost of losing inventory due to poor monitoring practices, or by not having functional monitors in place, will reduce the potential profit.

Shows Effectiveness Of In-House Programs

Another benefit of an environmental monitoring device is that it provides proof that the company operations procedure, personnel practices, and sanitation programs are effective. Any shortcomings will be easy to identify and the device provides the means to correct those matters before they get out of hand.

In Conclusion 

As long as sensitive products such as food items and medical supplies are manufactured, controlled environments will be needed to keep them safe and effective. The only way to track that they are in the proper temperature range is through the use of a data logger. A data logger is a device that has sensors that monitor the conditions and can alert someone when those conditions change and may damage sensitive assets or products. These tools will play a huge role in 2021 as we see such things as a COVID-19 vaccine rolled out to protect all of us.