The Serious Business of Shipping
Written by Christopher Prawdzik
MMT 2009 Volume: 13 Issue: 8 (December)
According to Victor MacDonald, director of the Division of Casualty Research at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, the troops had carried some units of packed red blood cells in a cooler to the ridge with them and were able to use some of the blood cells. But their ability to use it was limited. Later in Iraq the need also arose where troops were using makeshift containers to transport small amounts of blood.
“It became clear at that time that they needed something to carry out with them,” MacDonald said. “There was a need for transporting packed red blood cells in some sort of a format that would be convenient.”
It’s not just red blood cells, though. Transporting delicate or easily contaminated medical material around the world is serious business for the military. And “delicate” is relative. It can mean the ability for one medic to carry temperature-sensitive blood components to a 10,000-foot ridge at Takur Ghar, or it could mean transporting fragile medical equipment, such as portable X-ray machines and operating tables, to forward operating bases in Iraq or Afghanistan. As a result, the military has a number of shipping container options, from small, portable, temperaturecontrolled packs to large, stackable containers for transport of everything from medical supplies to office equipment.
For MacDonald, it was about temperature- specific requirements for transporting blood components in the field, and the rules weren’t flexible: The storage temperature for platelets, for example, is 20-24 degrees Celsius. Platelets only have a five- to seven-day life span at room temperature.
Plasma, generally, is shipped as “fresh frozen plasma,” MacDonald said. And when thawed, it must stay between 1 and 6 degrees Celsius.
“It has to be kept frozen during shipment; it has to be kept frozen during storage, and onsite you basically thaw it out, and you can keep that fresh frozen plasma thawed for 24 hours in the refrigerator—at refrigeration temperatures— for 24 hours,” he said. “If you re-label it as ‘thawed plasma,’ you can keep it for another four days and use it in transfusion.”
With such stringent parameters, word went out to companies to develop containers for different components with different temperature requirements for shipping and storage that have different capabilities to maintain cold chain integrity.
Primarily, the military needed the ability to load four to six units of packed red blood cells inside the container. The product had to maintain a temperature between 1 and 10 degrees Celsius—almost freezing— for a minimum of 48 hours in conditions where ambient temperatures are steady at 41 to 42 degrees Celsius (more than 105 degrees Fahrenheit). The product also had to maintain the same temperature range for 48 hours if the ambient temperature was minus 20 degrees Celsius. It could use no power, no batteries and would need to be an iceless container and weigh about 15 pounds.
Even with all of these requirements, Minnesota Thermal Science (MTS) came through with its Original Golden Hour Container. A recipient of an Army Greatest Invention Award in 2003, the container was deployed in 2004.
Karl Schlenker, vice president of business development for MTS, noted that the technology is completely “passive” but can maintain temperatures between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius for up to four days in extreme constant ambient temperatures.
“It’s a … combination of standard components that have been around for years, incorporating vacuum insulated panels, incorporating phase change material,” he said. “But it’s all in the application of how it’s done, surrounding the payload with phase change material to create the constant environment, much like your refrigerator in the house.”
Because of the extreme temperatures—in the heat of Iraq or on frigid peaks in Afghanistan—it’s just a matter of switching components within the container, whether it’s “4 C phase change material” for cold climates or “22 C phase change material” for hot climates, Schlenker said. Initially, the box was designed to hold 2 liters of temperature-sensitive material, but MTS, working with MacDonald, has also developed a smaller unit that has been deployed with Special Forces medics. The smaller Factor VII case utilizes the same technology but in a compact medic pack that operates for 48 hours in harsh environments or up to 72 hours in standard environments according to MTS.
MTS also has a platelet container used heavily in the Middle East. Built for the operating room, the container can replace an older cooler that required wet ice to maintain cooler temperatures during operations. This would often result in unusable platelets after a long operation, Schlenker said. The new container, however, can maintain the 2-8 degree Celsius temperature for about 20 hours without worry of ice melting and loss of product.
INCREASINGLY RUGGED
But shipping containers for delicate cargo aren’t limited to temperature-controlled packs and boxes that transport blood, medicine or vaccinations. The need to safely transport sensitive material varies throughout the military, but it’s a need several entities work tirelessly to meet.
Pelican products, for example, runs the gamut with more than 500 different sizes of containers designed to transport anything from bandages to high-end X-ray equipment to the field intact. Stephen Smiaroski, director of government products, said the company actually works “from the inside out” when finding the best case for the best transportability.
“Our expertise is really with the packaging of the product,” he said. “One of the things we’ve really [done] is … push the standard products, if you will, to help standardization of military containers both in the United States and … around the world.”
He said that much of the equipment going inside these cases is becoming much more “solid state” and more rugged, and the environments haven’t changed drastically in nearly a decade, so the standardization aspect works well. Basically, cases need to protect contents from sand, dust, snow, rain and salt, he said.
Pelican’s new wheeled 1740 Long Case, for example, is almost 41 inches long, more than a foot wide and a foot deep. It’s watertight, crush proof and dust proof and has four extra-deep base-to-lid locking cleats for stacking stability, according to its specs. The new 1770 Long Case, on the other hand, is more than 54 inches long, 15.8 inches wide and more than eight inches deep, while retaining most of the other features of the 1740.
“I’d say that one of the challenges is trying to keep within the balance between ‘customizing’ and ‘standard,’” Smiaroski said. “There’s an understanding that if somebody wants to have something customized … we can do that.”
And he noted some Pelican products that are the result of interaction between the company and the customer.
“Our first medical cases were to the Army’s specification, and we shipped those, and it was well accepted,” he said. “And then they wanted improvements for even longer longevity, and we went from plastic drawers to metal drawers to higher end metal drawers with a slide mechanism.”
A lot of these cases are for supplies that go out to the field. The other part is the equipment side. Dan Klepacz, product manager for government markets worldwide at Pelican- Hardigg, said much of these efforts to work with customers might seem simple, but it helps the customer get what’s specifically needed.
One of the biggest pushes, he said, is to make these containers useful in theater once they’re emptied instead of them just taking up precious space. For example, Pelican took a bulk supply chest and added a leg kit to it, so when the container is empty it still serves as a table. They’ve also taken a “No. 7 Case,” a deep container for bulk supply transport, and added shelves to it.
ECS Composites takes that philosophy with its products as well. A large percentage of its case production is based on military applications, particularly transporting electronics gear and sensitive medical gear.
According to Joe Gran, vice president of sales, the Marine Corps is a big customer, utilizing ECS’ containers for transporting medical supplies, particularly using products that sport its Loadmaster Rotomolded material. The polypropylene material allows for easy stacking and is 100 percent watertight. ECS is also the original patent holder for the “shock mounted interframe” for its electronics rack mounted frames.
ECS also works extensively with the Marine Corps, supplying inter-stackable medical cases. Barry Faganello, a general manager for ECS, said an element that helped make this product a standard for that branch is the fact that the cases have a zero draft angle. The straight up and down profile allows a variety of sized cases to be stacked together in a block. As a result, the cases are designed to interlock and fit the military 463L palate.
The 9/11 response prompted a greater need for such cases, but it also required some innovation to adjust to conditions and needs in a changing battlefield. Faganello noted regular feedback about product performance in the field, which has helped ECS make product modifications.
For example, the Marines said one medical case that was useful in surgical situations could be made into a table and used as part of the surgical setup. Another is the Loadmaster Drawer Case with integrated Field Desk that has integrated table legs and a tabletop all in one setup, but still maintains its interlocking stability for transport.
“It’s all about getting the specific gear that needs to be in the theater in as tight a package as possible, in as modular a format as possible, to get it to the forward areas as quickly as needed,” he said.
FITTING THE NEED
Of course, the competition among companies is fierce, but it’s a matter of finding the best way to fill a military need in the most efficient manner. With the hundreds of cases that serve the military’s delicate needs— whether it’s preserving blood platelets, surgical equipment or computer components that monitor a patient’s health in an inhospitable environment—the military side of the equation is much more concerned with getting the right product for the job, regardless of the manufacturers.
“If anything, what’s interesting is that when we look at a lot of container technologies, basically, we don’t have a horse in this race,” said MacDonald at the Army Institute of Research. “And anybody can come to us and say, ‘We’ve got a container that will work,’ and we’ll look at it.”
The problem is simple; it’s the solution that can be a challenge. It’s coming up with shipping and transport solutions for delicate material in an austere environment. “All we care about in the end is that there’s a product out there that the armed forces can purchase that solves the problem,” MacDonald said. “That’s it.” ♦