Use of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to monitor quality in fresh produce supply chains

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a revolutionary technology that will change the way how supply chain organizes in the future. Traditionally fresh produce supply chains are regarded as different to manage due to the perishable nature of products with quickly decayed quality. This product nature requires a dynamic decision-making process in the supply chain based on real-time product quality into account to realize the so-call quality-controlled logistics. Traditional IT solutions in the fresh produce supply chain lack the capacities of instantaneous data collection, transmission and translation, which hampers the realization of quality-controlled logistics. However, the emergence of IoT technologies with remoting sensing provides a new opportunity for companies to monitor product quality in the supply chain and make quality-informed logistic decisions. In this research, we have investigated the relevant aspects of IoT applications in fresh produce supply chains toward quality-controlled logistics. Key components of this innovation such as sensor selections, quality-decay models, integrated information platform, digital twin realization as well as soft enablers are addressed. We conclude that IoT-powered quality-controlled logistics has huge potential for efficiency improvement in fresh produce supply chains and concrete user cases at the business scale should be developed to demonstrate the validity of this innovation.