A Case Study of Human Milk Banking with Focus on the Role of IoT Sensor Technology

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript #sustainability-2100300 has been carefully reviewed. It is well-written and contains very valuable points regarding the milk banking process, initial evaluations, and quality control. But the only negative point is that, according to the title of the manuscript, it is expected that the content will be focused on IoT. While the authors discussed this technology in the second half of the article. In other words, a small portion of the article is devoted to stating the problem and providing a suitable answer through IoT technology, which contradicts the title of the review study.

Author Response

Manuscript #sustainability-2100300 has been carefully reviewed. It is well-written and contains very valuable points regarding the milk banking process, initial evaluations, and quality control. But the only negative point is that, according to the title of the manuscript, it is expected that the content will be focused on IoT. While the authors discussed this technology in the second half of the article. In other words, a small portion of the article is devoted to stating the problem and providing a suitable answer through IoT technology, which contradicts the title of the review study.

Response:

We thank the reviewer for highlighting the structure of the paper. While our main focus in the paper is on the role of IoT sensors, we needed to include more material on the case company to provide the necessary context. This has understandably moved the discussion of IoT sensors to the second half. In line with this comment, we have changed the title of our paper in the new version. We moved IoT sensor technology towards the end of the article. We hope this change of title is consistent with the content and structure of the paper.

Reviewer 2 Report

11. The literature should be relatively more enriched with some recent and relevant studies.

22. The authors should emphasize on  the research gap in the penultimate paragraph of the Introduction section

33. More illustration of Figure 2 is expected.

44. The authors should also emphasize on the limitation of the study in a separate paragraph.

Author Response

Comment 1

The literature should be relatively more enriched with some recent and relevant studies.

Response:

We thank this reviewer for providing opportunity to enhance quality of our article. The original version of the article included a number of relevant articles (some published in 2022) on human milk banks, technology and transportation. Considering this particular comment of the reviewer, we have added the following five more references in the revised version.

Molefe, L., & Henney, A. J. (2022, March). Donated Breastmilk Monitoring in the Western Cape's Milk Banks. In 2022 Conference on Information Communications Technology and Society (ICTAS) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.

Garg, H., Sharma, V., & Purohit, S. R. (2022), Application of IoT in the Food Processing Industry. In Applications of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Internet of Things in Sustainable Development (Eds. Goundar, S., Purwar, A. and Singh, A.),183-202). Boca Raton, CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003245469

Kaur, A., Singh, G., Kukreja, V., Sharma, S., Singh, S., & Yoon, B. (2022a). Adaptation of IoT with Blockchain in Food Supply Chain Management: An Analysis-Based Review in Development, Benefits and Potential Applications. Sensors, 22(21), 8174.

Mejjaouli, Sobhi. 2022. "Internet of Things based Decision Support System for Green Logistics" Sustainability 14, no. 22: 14756. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142214756

Kaur, Amanpreet, Gurpreet Singh, Vinay Kukreja, Sparsh Sharma, Saurabh Singh, and Byungun Yoon. 2022b. "Adaptation of IoT with Blockchain in Food Supply Chain Management: An Analysis-Based Review in Development, Benefits and Potential Applications" Sensors 22, no. 21: 8174. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22218174

 

Comment 2

The authors should emphasize on the research gap in the penultimate paragraph of the Introduction section

Response:

Thanks for this comment. We have included additional sentences highlighting research gap and contributions of the paper have been included in the revised version. Please see the penultimate paragraph of the Introduction section. See page-3.

Comment 3

More illustration of Figure 2 is expected.

Response:

A brief explanation of Figure 2 has been provided in the revised version. Please see the third paragraph of Section 4.3 (please see page -9)

Comment 4

The authors should also emphasize on the limitation of the study in a separate paragraph.

Response:

A new paragraph has been included in the penultimate paragraph of the conclusions section 6, page-15.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper describes the issues related the donor human milk storage and transportation, proposing a new technology to control some important variables, such as temperature and humidity, to reduce milk waste and costs, and improve sustainability and quality assurance.

The manuscript reads well, however, the reviewer has some concerns, as reported below.

First, the first part of the manuscript (from paragraphs 1 to 3.6) is redundant, and it could be synthesized and reduced. Secondly, considering that the authors want to highlight the potential of the new technology, then a deeper explanation would help in the evaluation of strength and capability. The authors report “Life cycle analysis was also performed. A discussion of these advanced analytics are beyond the scope of this case study and will be discussed in other papers”, however, without other specifics, the present manuscript does not have a strong impact and credibility.

Also, the authors only report a figure (figure 6) showing a time-series plot of the temperature of milk in the milk transportation bags. First, do the authors have other data to compare with? Such as other temperature control system data, or also other replication of the same trial? Without comparing with replications or different monitoring data, it is quite difficult judging the reliability.

Secondly, the authors mentioned the possibility to monitor the humidity as well. Do the authors have also some data showing that? If so, please add some figures o tables proving that.

Minor issues:

 

Line 347: double dot, please delete one.

Author Response

Comment 1

The paper describes the issues related the donor human milk storage and transportation, proposing a new technology to control some important variables, such as temperature and humidity, to reduce milk waste and costs, and improve sustainability and quality assurance.

The manuscript reads well, however, the reviewer has some concerns, as reported below.

Response:

We thank the reviewer for the compliments.

Comment 2

First, the first part of the manuscript (from paragraphs 1 to 3.6) is redundant, and it could be synthesized and reduced.

Response:

We understand the value of this fair comment. While our main focus in the paper is on the role of IoT sensors, we needed to include more material on the case company to provide the necessary context. This has understandably moved the discussion of IoT sensors to the second half of the article and made the first few pages appear somewhat redundant. However, we still need to include information on the case company context in the first few pages. In line with this comment, we have changed the title of our paper in the new version. We moved IoT sensor technology towards the end of the title. We hope that this change of title is consistent with the content and structure of the paper, and that the first part does not appear to be redundant.

Comment 3

Secondly, considering that the authors want to highlight the potential of the new technology, then a deeper explanation would help in the evaluation of strength and capability.

Response:

We thank the reviewer for this insightful comment. We have included a new sub-section 5.1 where we discussed the strength and capability of the new technology. To provide a neutral assessment, we have also outlined some limitations in Section 6 Conclusions (please see page 13-15).

Comment 4

The authors report “Life cycle analysis was also performed. A discussion of these advanced analytics are beyond the scope of this case study and will be discussed in other papers”, however, without other specifics, the present manuscript does not have a strong impact and credibility.

Response:

Life Cycle Analysis of the case study is currently under review for publication (da Costa et al., 2022) in the same special issue as of this article. We have included a reference to this paper in the revised version. When both the papers are published, we hope that cross references between the papers will improve credibility of both the articles.

Comment 5

Also, the authors only report a figure (figure 6) showing a time-series plot of the temperature of milk in the milk transportation bags. First, do the authors have other data to compare with? Such as other temperature control system data, or also other replication of the same trial? Without comparing with replications or different monitoring data, it is quite difficult judging the reliability.

Response:

We appreciate the value of this comment from the reviewer. However, a detailed discussion of analysis of data from sensor will move the focus of the paper from the case study to more on analysis. The main idea of Figure 6 (renumbered as Figure 6b in the revised version after adding a new figure) is to inform the readers that time series plots of temperature data are available on real time. Inclusion of this figure is in line with the title of Section 5 (adapting the technology) as we show how data from sensors are being made available in real time for rapid decision-making. Please refer to page-13.

Comment 6

Secondly, the authors mentioned the possibility to monitor the humidity as well. Do the authors have also some data showing that? If so, please add some figures o tables proving that.

Response: Thank you for this observation. We have added another new figure, Figure 6a, showing multiple parameters being measured using sensors. Please see page-13.

Minor issues:

Comment 7

Line 347: double dot, please delete one.

Response:

Thanks for spotting the typo. We have corrected the typo in the revised version. We have proof-read the entire revised version.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

thanks for replying point by point to my comments. I feel comfortable in suggesting accepting the new version.