b'12American Journal of Transportation ajot.com(KEYcontinued from page 9) Europe, South Korea, and Taiwan asso-advancements in digital supply chainciated with the cold chain equipmentPandemic developments will drive technologythathaveconvergedtoprogram of Gavi, The Vaccine Partner-helpprovideend-to-endvisibilityofship, an effort dedicated to providingfuture supply-chain improvementsCOVID-19vaccineshipments,saidvaccines to developing countries that Descartes Jones. includesthe WorldHealthOrganiza- By Peter Buxbaum, AJOT Tracking tags. The latest are ship- tion,UNICEF,theWorldBank,and ment-centric, work across the multiplethe Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Thesupply-chainproblemshigh- way for improved cargo visibility(see parties that handle air cargo shipments,ThepurposeofthecampaignlightedbytheCOVID-19pandemicstory on page 9) that will reach beyond and can track the condition of the ship- may have been to harvest credentialsandthedistributionofvaccineshavethepandemic.Pharmaceuticalship-ment including, temperature, humidity,togainfutureunauthorizedaccess,underscoredthenecessityforgreatermentsneededbettervisibilityand, light,shockandsmoke,saidJones.said an IBM report of the investigation,informationsharingandsupply-chainespecially,conditionmonitoring,and Recentadvancesinelectronicshaveto gain insight into processes, methods,visibility. The adoption of digital supply- that will continue to be required after made the tags smaller, easier to deploy,andplanstodistributeaCOVID-19chaintechnologiesthatacceleratedinthepandemic,notedChrisJones, less expensive to produce, and morevaccine.Thisincludesinformationthe wake of the virus will only continueexecutive vice president at Descartes. rugged, he added, with longer track- regardinginfrastructurethatgovern- its march once the pandemic is history.The same goes for high-v0alue ship-ing ranges and battery lives.mentsintendtousetodistributeaOther sensitive and high-value cargoes,ments,suchasspecialelectronics, Meshnetworks.Meshnetworkvaccinetothevendorsthatwillbesuch as flowers, food, and electronics,wherecargoownerswanttoknow technology fill in the dead spots thatsupplyingitandtoconductcyberrequire intensive monitoring, and thereexactlywheretheirgoodsareandif existinairportsandotherpointsespionage and collect additional con- is a general thirst for supply-chain datathey have been properly handled.acrosstheend-to-endpharmaceuti- fidential information from the victimand information, whatever the cargo. Descartes is working on an IATA cal cold chain, said Jones. They costenvironments for future operations. Informationanddataarethepilotprogramthataddressesthese lesstoimplement,aremoreresil- Whiletheidentityofthebadfoundationofinsight,saidMikaelissues. If anything, said Jones, the ient, and can be located across theactorsiscurrentlyunknown,theLind,aprofessoratResearchInsti- pandemic is accelerating the deploy-logisticschaininairports,aircargoreportconcludedthatthetargetingtutesofSweden.Everybodywantsment of these advanced digital supply stations,andloadingdockstoauto- andnatureofthetargetedorganiza- to know more. chaintechnologiesandmanyindus-matically capture the movement andtions point to nation-state activity,tries will benefit as a result.status of shipments. yet another reason for governments tos UpplyC haiNv isiBility Continuedinvestmentsinblock-Mobileapps.Theyhelptrackstep into this arena. There already has been work under- (DRIVEcontinued on page 18)shipmentsatanypointinthephar-maceutical cold chain and query their condition,saidJones.Smartphones provide greater flexibility to capture data, receive or deliver shipments, or interrogate shipment status on-demand. Any size of logistics organization can participateinthelogisticschainby downloading the tracking app.Thecloud.Acloud-basedtrack-ingplatform,saidJones,isrequired to scale and provide a unified shipment status. A common repository that uni-fies end-to-end tracking data, he added, is essential to eliminating the silos of trackinginformationthatexisttoday. With one version of the truth, all partici-pants will know the status of a shipment and be able to use that information to make better decisions.Open architecture. Interoperability is going to be critical as no one tech-nology provider will be able to deliver allofthetagsandtrackinghardware required,saidJones.Thetracking networkmustallowanytechnology provider that meets tag or tracking stan-dards to participate. This will increase the velocity of deployment, foster inno-vation, and help to keep costs down.The pandemic has accelerated the deployment of these technologies, Jones noted,andwillcontinuetoimprove supply-chain operations for pharmaceu-ticals and other sensitive and high-value shipments. (See box in next column)C yBer risksThehighdegreeofautomation required to properly manage vaccine supply chains also heightens the risk ofcybersecuritybreaches.Remote employees working on unsecure serv-ers was one risk identified in a Cyber-securityandInfrastructureSecurity AgencyreportfromJuly.Hackers couldtargetsensorsmonitoring vaccine cold chains or use other tar-geted efforts, the agency warned, to undermine distribution or sow chaos.Soonaftertheavailabilityof COVID vaccines had been announced in early December, IBM cybersecurity analysts uncovered an email phishing scheme targeting global COVID vac-cinesupplychains,andurgedcold-chain companies to be vigilant and onhighalert.Fraudulentemails impersonating an executive from Chi-nasHaierBiomedical,alegitimate memberoftheCOVID-19vaccine supply chain, targeted organizations in'