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When handling temperature-sensitive products, precise temperature control is critical. The challenge is to keep the refrigerated trailer as close to set-point as possible for maximum product quality and shelf life—despite aging fleets, frequent door openings and outside temperatures that all threaten to take holding temperatures inside the trailer out of range.
In the past, the answer was to lower the reefer temperature settings to ensure that trailer temperatures never reached a problem area. But now, new intelligent reefer technology from both Carrier Transicold, Farmington, CT, and Thermo King, Min-neapolis, is making it easier for drivers and fleet managers to keep the proper temperature settings inside the trailer.
“With today’s equipment, there is so much that benefits the user with the controls,” says Ignacio Aguerrevere, director of marketing and product development at Carrier Transicold. “For the fleet manager, it’s actually better at controlling the temperature of his cargo, and it makes it easier for the driver as well.”
“The end result is that the entire temperature control system has been raised to a higher standard of quality and performance, providing our customers with greater peace of mind and helping their businesses run smoother,” agrees Doug Lenz, Thermo King’s product manager for trailer and rail.
Thermo King’s newest reefer controller is the Smart Reefer 2, which it first released in 2004. The in-cab controllers allow drivers to pre-trip the refrigeration unit and pre-cool the trailer while en route to pick up perishable cargo. All this can be done with the touch of a button, right from inside the cab. The unit can even display its scroll-down menu in 21 languages.
Carrier Transicold’s unit is called Ad-vance, and with an option called IntelliSet, fleet managers can pre-program it with very specific trailer temperature set-points based on the types of commodities hauled most frequently. Fleet managers can also pre-program the units’ economy settings related to airflow, start/stop or continuous operation, off times, restart times, temperature overrides, defrost intervals and more.
Once all these settings are pre-loaded using Carrier’s ReeferManager software, all the driver has to do is select the commodity type from a scroll-down menu on the reefer control panel prior to loading the trailer and the reefer itself will do the rest.
Carrier recently expanded the number of commodity profiles that can be programmed into its Advance controllers. The units now can store reefer operating parameters specific to up to 100 commodity types. “As customers discovered how powerful and valuable the IntelliSet option was to their operation, they requested the ability to store more profiles,” says Mark Fragnito, Carrier’s electronics product manager.
