Video: 10 Minute IT Jams - Who is Logmore?
A Finnish start-up is making it easier to track the global cold chain of temperature-sensitive goods using a combination of cloud-based technology and dynamic QR code tags. Nico Paulinén, CEO of Logmore, spoke with us about the challenges and opportunities facing supply chain monitoring, particularly in the context of COVID-19 vaccine distribution.
Logmore is one of a new breed of companies specialising in shipment condition monitoring for food, pharmaceuticals, and high-tech electronics. The company's solutions have been particularly valuable in the pandemic era, with public health institutions and pharmaceutical firms relying on next-generation technologies to keep critical vaccine shipments safe on their way to the world.
Paulinén said, "Logmore is all about making global supply chains transparent by collecting data like temperature, humidity, shocks, and all that, and combining that into a cloud platform for easy analysis." He explained that their system operates on two levels: giving granular information about each individual shipment's condition and providing a broader overview that can flag risky trends or problematic locations within the supply chain.
The importance of such monitoring has never been clearer than during the global rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines. Distributing them safely has placed unprecedented demands on cold chain logistics. "The world has never ever seen anything like this," said Paulinén. "The volume of these dry ice, extreme cold, minus 70 degrees Celsius shipments, it's hundreds and hundreds of times larger than it's ever been before, because the Pfizer vaccine requires such really low temperatures."
Despite these logistical hurdles, Paulinén believes companies involved in the vaccine effort are performing admirably. "Under these circumstances everyone is doing actually really good," he said. "But the challenges are maybe relating to end-to-end visibility and transparency… supply chains are really complicated, with multiple operators—after transporting a shipment by plane, it may need to go by truck, and then be stored in warehouses, all managed by different companies." Combining all this data for a holistic, real-time view remains "really challenging", he added.
Paulinén also noted that different segments of the cold chain may use incompatible temperature monitoring systems, making it harder to assemble one coherent picture of a product's journey. "The data isn't really combined into any holistic view of these shipments," he said.
While cold chain monitoring's profile has been raised by the pandemic, the long-term trend is towards more and more sectors requiring these technologies. "It's coming everywhere," Paulinén said, describing how even local pharmacies in Finland are setting up e-commerce platforms and arranging direct shipments to consumers—requiring careful condition tracking right to the buyer's door.
At the other end of the spectrum, Logmore has also seen growth in the monitoring of high-tech equipment and industrial electronics during global transit. In these areas, tracking not just temperature, but also humidity and physical shocks, is increasingly in demand. "The need for measuring, especially temperature, humidity, and shocks is really on the rise," Paulinén said.
Central to Logmore's solution is its dynamic QR code technology—a feature born out of the company's founding innovation. Paulinén explained, "The dynamic QR code idea was actually the initial innovation we built the whole company on top of. My friend and co-founder Antti got the idea, and that's how we got started." The early prototype devices were "really big," but after three years of development, both the hardware and software have become more refined, with a focus on maximising battery life—now up to four years.
What sets Logmore's QR codes apart is their ability to change over time and securely embed new measurement data as a shipment progresses. "It encodes and encrypts the measurement data into the QR code… it's just a standard QR code, but it's changing so it's able to embed more data into it," Paulinén explained.
Another key differentiator for Logmore is its open approach to data. While many competitors rely on proprietary "black box" databases, Logmore offers APIs that allow customers to integrate logistics condition readings with any platform they choose. This is crucial, Paulinén believes, especially for large enterprises seeking flexible solutions. "Today, any new software platform you're developing needs to be integratable into existing solutions, because standalone systems are not really efficient, especially in larger organisations where you need access management and all that."
In practice, this means that customers can automatically pull data from Logmore's cloud into their own enterprise resource planning or logistics management systems, as well as push additional information back. "It also will enable much deeper analytics, because the API goes both ways," Paulinén explained. "It's possible to also include more data, like shipment tracking information, maybe even combining, in the near future, things like weather forecasts and stuff like that, which will enable much more complex reports and analytics."
These possibilities, Paulinén believes, will only accelerate as condition monitoring and data transparency become central to supply chain quality assurance across industries. "You can actually find the processes and things you need to consider and make better," he said.
Asked how potential clients can see Logmore's technology for themselves, Paulinén was upbeat. He encouraged interested parties to try out the company's new virtual demo, which lets users interact with the system and see how the QR code devices and the cloud platform work together. "You can actually see how the devices and the cloud work there in real time, play around with it and just get in touch," he said.
Paulinén is convinced conditions monitoring is only going to grow in significance. "We wanted to make a solution that helps the world to monitor these things—and it's only becoming more important," he said.
