Going Into The Cold: Rugged Devices For A Frigid World

Cold Chain solutions require a variety of technologies and supporting software applications, including sensors, data transfer over wireless networks, real time logging and analysis, unique product identification, workforce mobile computing systems, etc. It is beyond the scope of this paper to focus on all of these components. Rather, this paper will focus on the needs of the mobile computing environment for the Cold Chain workforce.

Devices must be selected for their long term rugged construction and ability to sustain extremes of temperature, humidity, shock and longevity. Many companies that investigate solutions are drawn to the attractive pricing of commercial off-the-shelf handhelds and notebook systems. Yet for most deployments, this is a false economy. The commercial systems are not designed to work at the physical extremes of their more ruggedized brethren, which meet NEMA, IP and MIL-STD specifications. Indeed, in extreme conditions, the commercial devices may not even function, as cold temperatures may prevent the displays from working or significantly impact the ability of the hard drive to operate. Further, most commercial off-the-shelf devices when used in such environmental extremes, even if they do operate, have a very short mean time before failure. It is not uncommon to see a commercial class device fail within 3 months of extreme use, where a more rugged device designed for such operations may easily last 3+ years before failure.