An IoT Solution for Monitoring Refrigerated Deployments

UK-based Sollatek is a global leader in commercial refrigeration control, delivering cutting-edge hardware and IoT management solutions for the world’s top beverage companies and other refrigerated consumables. The company offers a range of solutions focused on power management, asset tracking, monitoring and optimization, and also provides the necessary data and operational insight to enable businesses to thrive.

Chief among these offerings is a unique suite of commercial refrigeration solutions designed to monitor and control the temperature, energy usage, and voltage stability of everything from beverage coolers and refrigerators to display cabinets and freezers. Additionally, the solution provides real-time cooler location tracking, can mark cooler sales based on door openings, monitor cooler misuse, and remotely control cooling system functionality. 

The benefits of a properly maintained refrigeration system (safeguarding product quality, preventing spoilage, meeting regulatory requirements, etc.) are critical for day-to-day business, so ensuring that your equipment is working smoothly and efficiently is essential for modern business.

The Challenge: Reigning in Inefficient Refrigeration Equipment

Commercial refrigeration is a highly energy-intensive process, with one estimate saying that a commercial refrigerator can use up to 17,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity over its lifetime. A separate survey from the Energy Information Administration found that refrigeration systems accounted for 14 percent of the 1.35 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity produced by the commercial sector in 2017. Coca Cola bottlers alone have over 10 million beverage coolers deployed in the field and purchase at least another million per annum.

This makes refrigeration systems a major factor in global energy usage, as well as a potentially costly marker on a customer’s bottom line. Monitoring refrigeration deployments for warming trends, power surges, and other events can do more than maintain stock and reduce spoilage; it can enable preventative maintenance to help preserve the longevity of mission-critical equipment in the field.

Furthermore, everything from the location of the cooler, to the cooler type, to the ideal cooling parameter settings, sales efficiency, and cooler operations can best be achieved when there is regular information flow from coolers deployed in the field to a system that can analyze the data and guide business owners to take the right decisions. 

The Solution: A Connected Refrigeration Solution Built for Efficiency

Sollatek offers a number of devices designed to help customers remotely manage and control their refrigeration operations. The company offers various Always On temperature controllers that can be mounted to equipment or simply adhered for display, with features that promote energy efficiency to help keep operations running smoothly. Other products include voltage stabilizers, and power controls, as well as ancillary equipment designed to improve and extend the features of Sollatek’s line.

All of Sollatek’s temperature controllers come with built-in or external connectivity options that allow customers to keep close tabs on any commercial refrigerators and beverage coolers they have deployed. This connectivity is provided by Soracom, which allows each and every device to access top-tier cellular connectivity across multiple connectivity technologies and carriers in 170 countries.

“Our devices offer fleet managers a wealth of data that can be used for real-time data-driven decisions that will maximize their output and keep their systems running efficiently. Providing that service at a global scale is how we stay ahead of the competition.”

Dimitris Flokos
Head of IoT Solutions at Sollatek

Many of the world’s largest beverage producers have already discovered the power of Sollatek’s Always On solution, with more than a million coolers and freezers deployed with Sollatek technology worldwide.  

How Cellular Connectivity Empowers Global Monitoring

Monitoring and management systems for refrigeration equipment require near-constant data uploads to be viable, and the challenge is only exacerbated when operating across international borders. Scaling an operation that spans multiple countries and continents presents myriad challenges. No single carrier can ensure devices will stay connected across the globe, meaning that deploying refrigeration solutions in disparate parts of the world might involve multiple vendors, bills, and relationships to manage.

This is what makes Soracom a natural connectivity provider to Sollatek. Soracom partners with many of the biggest MNOs in the world, ensuring strong, reliable connectivity virtually wherever it is needed. Considering Sollatek’s customers include some of the largest names in the beverage world, the ability to support deployments in multiple countries is a must. Beyond that, Soracom’s network is packed with redundancies and automatic failover, which means that devices have the best chance of staying connected, even if a customer’s preferred network goes down.

With refrigeration deployments only growing in complexity, the combination of Sollatek’s monitoring technology and Soracom’s best-in-class connectivity solution provides customers with the perfect solution to protect their investments.

Filed under: RetailSupply ChainAsset tracking