Logistics Technology in Medical Freight – Our Guide

Logistics technology for medical freight is a key component in ensuring that time-sensitive, high value and fragile medical freight arrives safely at its destination.

At Freight People, we know that using the right technology can have a huge impact on the performance of your medical equipment and medical supplies freight.

In this article, we take a look at the important aspects of logistics technology you should be using to optimise the shipment of your medical freight throughout Australia.

The Importance of Logistics Technology

Freight technology has come a long way in recent years, and using the right technology in your business will help you to optimise your medical freight supply chain.

By taking advantage of tracking, remote monitoring, automation, and reporting, you can increase freight performance, reduce damage, and deliver a seamless customer experience.

Let’s take a look at the technology that will benefit your medical freight – tracking, pricing, reporting, and remote monitoring.

Tracking Freight

Knowing where your freight is and whether or not it’s going to arrive on time is critical.

The right technology will give you detailed tracking information on your freight, including where it is, when it’s going to arrive, and whether delays will impact your delivery.

Key to freight tracking for medical freight is the ability to use SMS notifications.

With everyone having a phone these days, your technology system can be set up to send SMS notifications to key people based on a range of parameters.

For example, if a piece of life-saving equipment is making its way from Melbourne to Sydney, and there's a surgeon in Sydney who needs to know exactly where it is, they can get live updates on the transit of the equipment based on milestones.

This can happen any time up until the freight is onboard for delivery to the actual surgeon, and can even be based on proximity within a kilometer radius. Everyone who needs to know where it is can know, from the hospital admin staff through to the surgeon, direct to their own phone.

Pricing Orders

Shipping medical freight can be very expensive.

If it’s not a huge piece of equipment, then it’s dangerous or fragile goods and requires specialist carriers who know how to move medical freight with care.

When you add to this that Australia is huge, and medical freight often needs to be delivered to regional or rural areas, being able to get a range of freight quotes is important.

The power of freight management technology gives you access to a wide range of freight carriers throughout Australia, you can manage your medical freight costs by pricing orders before they ship.

This allows you to get the best possible freight price, while also meeting the specialist requirements of what you’re freighting.

Freight Reporting

Being able to effectively and regularly report on your freight performance is the best way to optimise your supply chain.

Whether it’s keeping track of your high-value customer profiles so you can manage your margins, improving packaging to reduce damage, or monitoring carrier performance to improve delivery speed, you can’t make good freight decisions without access to good freight data.

Remote Monitoring

Beyond simply tracking the location of your freight, remote monitoring uses sensors to detect a wide variety of measures, including drops or increases in temperature, movement that might cause damage to freight, and even pressure levels.

This type of monitoring isn’t just great when your freight is in transit. It’s equally useful when goods are sitting in the warehouse waiting to be dispatched, or moved on to the next leg of their journey.

By letting you know that refrigerated goods are dropping in temperature for example, allows you to rectify the temperature problem before things go off and can no longer be used.

Medical Freight Logistics Technology – The benefits

When you’re dealing with high-value medical freight, logistics technology makes up an essential part of your freight requirements.

Not only is medical equipment one of the most expensive types of freight you can ship, it’s also prone to damage from rough handling and changes in temperature.

Implementing the right logistics technology will help you move your medical freight safely, securely and on time.

Medical Freight Needs

Medical freight has a unique set of requirements that the right logistics technology can help you manage effectively.

These include requirements around fragile and dangerous goods, time-sensitive delivery, and high-value shipments.

Fragile Goods

Medical freight is mostly made up of fragile and dangerous goods

Remote monitoring technology helps medical freight to arrive safely at its destination, undamaged, unspoiled and ready for use.

Time Sensitive Delivery

Medical freight is often exceptionally time-sensitive.

But Australia is a huge country, and getting freight into regional and rural areas on time can be a huge challenge. Floods, fire and other disruptions to services can create a significant impact on delivering vital medical supplies and equipment.

When you’ve got the right logistics technology in place, you’ll be able to make quick decisions if your freight gets held up.

Tracking will allow you to know that your goods are delayed, and the right freight management software will help you move your medical freight to another carrier or mode of transport wherever possible.

Valuable Cargo

The right logistics technology will help to protect your valuable cargo, and medical freight is valuable cargo for several reasons.

Medical equipment and supplies are often expensive. This means that loss or damage has a significant financial impact.

But it’s also valuable because of its intended use. Patient outcomes rely on medical freight getting where it needs to go on time, and ready to use.

Shipping Medical Equipment - Freight People are here to help

If you’re looking for a reliable, experienced, and innovation-driven freight partner to support you with your medical equipment supply chain needs, the team at Freight People are here to help.

We’re at the forefront of medical freight technology, and our freight management software will put specialist medical carriers across Australia at your fingertips.

Why Choose Freight People

We’re specialists in dealing with medical equipment and supplies and will work with you to understand your medical freight profile, to deliver a customised freight solution that will optimise your supply chain and improve your freight performance.

Get in touch with us today to find out how we can help you implement logistics technology to transform the way you deliver your medical freight