Smart-Trace News



January 2012
Ceebron engineers complete Smart-Trace Application software upgrade.
December 2011
Ceebron receives / approves Consultants market entry business plan specifically for North American cold chain monitoring market.
October 2011
Ceebron completes its North American Market Research program, with US Consulting firm, more than validating earlier assumptions.
September 2011
Ceebron reconfigures its Australian Business Plan, to better reflect changing international economic realities.
August 2011
Ceebron Engineer identifies lower cost tag pathway further enhancing Smart-Trace solution affordability.
July 2011
Following the introduction of the US Food Safety Modernisation Act and the flow-on effect for cold chain food products, Ceebron has received a number of enquiries from US companies.
June 2011
Visiting US Department of Defence Comparative Testing Office (CTO) have short-listed Ceebron for a follow-up Smart-Trace presentation in the US later this year.
May 2011
Ceebron are delighted to see its Smart-Trace solution has placed 6th overall in the Australian Smart 100 Companies as run annually by ANTHILL Magazine.

May 2011
Ceebron presented its Smart-Trace solution to the European Cold Chain Management Group in Bonn, Germany.
March 2011
Walmart asks meat industry to break with tradition
Food safety professionals need to break with tradition and to be more imaginative and creative in dealing with food safety issues, Frank Yiannas, vice president for food safety for Walmart, told the 750 delegates at the Global Food Safety Conference in London at its closing session on Friday.

He identified several trends in food safety that had come out of the conference, including:
  • Increased surveillance and the use of more technologies in surveillance of foodborne disease outbreaks
  • The importance of ingredients as a cause of half of the disease outbreaks in the United State in recent years
  • The significance of social media is giving early warning of foodborne illnesses, and
  • The role that human behaviour played in causing and preventing food-linked diseases.

Yiannas also made a plea for the industry to learn from other disciplines and for the regulators to understand that they should design standards but should not be prescriptive about solutions.

Collaboration and leadership, not just management, were also on his list of future actions to deal with food safety on a global scale.

Speaking to Meatingplace after his closing speech at the conference Frank Yiannas said, “Walmart introduced an important initiative in April last year requiring US beef suppliers to further protect customers against foodborne illnesses by incorporating leading-edge food safety standards. The meat supply chain can’t rely only on testing and inspection. Validated scientific evidence is crucial."

“Looking to the future, my call to the conference today is for the food safety community to break with tradition. We need to change behavior and cultures and use the new technologies to achieve better food safety. This applies equally to the meat supply chain and the industry can learn from other disciplines and show creativity and leadership in food safety.”

***

A recent article in the Australian Financial Review discusses Ceebron's pursuit of additional funding for Smart-Trace Tag firm tracking down funds.

February 2011
Recent marketplace developments point to a rapid international adoption for innovative traceability technology. These regulatory climate changes validate Ceebron's efforts to date in the development and piloting of Smart-Trace.

President Obama’s focus on enhanced food safety for US consumers is reflected in the January 2011 Food Safety Modernisation Act, which aims to ensure the U.S. food supply is safe by shifting the focus of federal regulators from responding to contamination to preventing it.

Supporting this legislation is the recently updated food borne illnesses data from the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC), which estimates each year roughly 1 out of 6 Americans (or 48 million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from foodborne diseases.

A recent analysis to the total cost to the US economy of such food borne illnesses is significantly up-scaled to $152 billion.

Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) recent introduction into law of its Australian Consumer Law Bill (No. 2) 2010, placing immediate and heavy liability/penalties onto suppliers, including retailers, of products including food, that result in injury/death to a consumer.

With perishable foods and their temperature abuse being major contributors to above statistics, there has been a call for full and rapid traceability – one back, one forward – and, food safety and traceability, plus responsive product recalls, are being mandated in major markets. Global trade market access is increasingly determined by traceability (GS1 Australia and HP develop Recallnet, a cloud-based recall service to remove potentially harmful products from supply chain).

Food supply sustainability for an exponentially growing global population together with increasing environmental impact concerns has placed much more emphasis on food waste and attendant landfill methane emissions. Major retailers have waste reduction strategies for perishables (A hill of beans - America’s food-waste problem is getting worse).

Temperature sensitive Pharmaceutical and life science products are increasingly subject to more rigorous regulatory pressures, relating to their cold chain integrity (Temperature sensitive pharmaceutical transportation – a changing picture By Tony Wright), (Cold Chain Management - An Essential Component of the Global Pharmaceutical Supply Chain by Rafik H. Bishara, Ph.D.).

October 2010
The Supply Chain & Logistics Association of Australia (SCLAA) selects Ceebron for a 2010 Australian Supply Chain and Logistics Award. Ceebron's Smart-Trace system has won the Information Management Award, awarded to the business that best demonstrates it has made a significant achievement in the application of information technology within the supply chain.

More details
August 2010
Ceebron's Smart-Trace System wins an award at the 2010 Tech 23 Awards. View presentation by Mark Skipper.

March 2009
Smart-Trace now helps transport companies simplify and automate their deliveries. The result is better satisfied supplier and retailer customers.
March 2009
Ceebron actively seeking suitable international partner(s) to commercialise the Smart-Trace technology. Smart-Trace is a patent-protected, proven technology for enhancing cold chain integrity. It aligns with the world's current flight to greater quality, reduced risk, and increased regulation.
December 2008
Ceebron continues to enhance the Smart-Trace product offering.

Smart-Trace brochure
October 2008
The Smart-Trace system gateway has successfully monitored refrigerated trailers during a pilot, over the last 12 months. The continuous (24x7) 'log' of trailer performance transparency, over this period, helped validate the robustness and cost effectiveness of the new system, in the challenging Australian cold chain environment.
September 2008
A Ceebron presentation titled "Enhancing the Integrity of the Cold Chain" was given at the 2008 National Convention for the Refrigerated Warehouse & Transportation Association - (Download the Ceebron Presentation).
May 2008
Smart-Trace™ has been used successfully for 6 months of real time, online monitoring of frozen beef consignments, down the east coast of Australia. During this pilot period, trailer operating concerns were alerted and quickly corrected.
January 2008
Ceebron's Smart-Trace™ System has provided near real-time monitoring of frozen beef shipments for a leading meat supplier during the last 3 months. The accuracy of Smart-Trace™ tags has been validated by a leading cold chain consultant.
October 2007
Successful monitoring of frozen beef shipments over the last month provides the Smart-Trace team with user interface validation and valued system refinement ideas.
             
September 2007
A leading supplier of frozen meat products has contracted extended piloting of the Smart-Trace™ system, to better monitor thru load temperatures of its trailer load deliveries.
 
August 2007
Smart-Trace is featured in a CSIRO promotional video titled "Creating Impact for the Industry, Society, and the Environment". 
                 
June 2007
At Microsoft's invitation, Ceebron exhibited Smart-Trace at the 2007 Smart Supply Chain Technology Show in Sydney.
 
             
May 2007
Ceebron wins Consensus Software Award in recognition of the Smart-Trace Web Application and the potential of Smart-Trace in the global market.
      
April 2007 Article on Smart-Trace in GS1 Australia's "LINK The Supply Chain" newsletter -  Issue No. 13 - Autumn 2007.   
         
December 2006 Ceebron receives report 'Validation of the Smart-Trace™ Technology' from Food Science Australia - a joint venture of CSIRO and the Victorian Government. 

The report covers extensive field trialling of the system with leading industry firms in a wide range of distribution application areas, including local and export markets, food and pharma products, retail and food service channels, and chilled and frozen conditions. The key conclusions of this report were:
  • The Smart-Trace™ tags were consistently accurate and generally reliable. Data was available on the Smart-Trace Server in near real-time as long as no mobile comms infrastructure problems were experienced.
     
  • The highly variable performance of the six transport systems surveyed reiterated the real need for regular monitoring of transport temperatures. The number of tags deployed during the trials were sufficient in each case to provide a good estimate of the average product temperature, and the significant temperature spread throughout the loads.  
   Download Field Trial Video (2.2MB)
November 2006 The Smart-Trace™ system was demonstrated live to an industry forum at the recent Food Solutions Expo held in Werribee, Victoria, Australia. The live demonstration captured the attention of the attendees who where impressed by the near-real time continuous identity, temperature and location monitoring offered by the Smart-Trace system. The Food Solutions Expo brings together food related industry participants which includes food manufacturers, food retailers, food research, packaging, and cold chain organizations. 
 
         
October 2006 Case Study on 'Smart-Trace system' from Food Science & Nutrition Issue 2 - 'Fresh Perspectives on Global Food Supply Chains', published by Food Science Australia - a joint venture between CSIRO and the Victorian State Government. 
 
August 2006 Article on Smart-Trace from Food Science Australia - a joint venture between CSIRO and the Victorian Government.  
July  2006 Ceebron completes sea trials with Australian chilled and frozen beef into Japan and Korea in MOL shipping containers. 
 
        
June 2006 Technical paper from Food Australia - the official journal of Australian Institute of Food Science Technology.  
May  2006 Technical paper from The International Review of Food Science and Technology on real-time, predictive shelf-life for food safety and international consumer pressure for same. 
 
   
April 2006 Article on Smart-Trace from EcoLibrium - the official journal of Australian Institute of Refrigeration Air Conditioning and Heating (AIRAH). 
March 2006 Article on Smart-Trace from the Next section of Sydney Morning Herald.
or via SMH site 
February 2006 Successful completion of Smart-Trace Field Trials across Australia with leading perishables consignors and independently audited by Food Science Australia/CSIRO.
December 2005 Three year development of mesh wireless networking tags and gateways completed
March 2005 Smart-Trace and the global cold chain (article from The Australian)
    
March 2005 Patent challenge successfully defended.
    
March 2005 Smart-Trace patent granted in the USA, Australia, and pending in Japan
March 2004 Smart-Trace patent granted in the UK