Material Handling Systems help major pharmaceautical distribor

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The nation’s largest correctional facility pharmaceuticals provider and Pennsylvania’s largest independently owned Long Term Care pharmacy, utilizes material handling systems to improve its warehouse operations.

This pharmaceutical provider operates a medical supply business and distribution center located in Indiana, Pennsylvania. They provide pharmaceutical supplies to correctional facilities in 36 states.

To maximize efficiency and throughput at the distribution center, they turned to warehouse consultants W&H Systems;to design, engineer, manufacture, and implement a turnkey, integrated material handling system that would still maintain the accuracy and quality necessary for delivery of prescription medications.

As part of the warehouse consultants design, they used an automated sortation systems called the RSU tilted-tray sorter as the heart of a system that would quickly, gently and efficiently facilitate the processing of pharmaceutical orders and returns. This major provider of pharmaceuticals carries a complete line of Pharmaceuticals, OTC Medications, IV’s & Vaccines that come in various types of packaging including: Blister Packs, Vials, Bottles to name a few.

How The System Operates:

Pharmaceutical orders are received from the correctional facilities and entered into the host computer system. The host downloads all information necessary to properly sort the prescriptions to the sort control system.

In the order fulfillment area:

The individual prescriptions are picked, packaged; a barcode is applied and then placed into plastic totes. When the order is completed, the totes are placed on gravity conveyors, which move the totes onto a conveyor system line for transportation to the checking area. The checking area consists of 10 workstations that are manned with pharmacists who check and verify each order.

After orders have been checked and cleared for processing, the totes are placed onto the in feed conveyor system line and are transported to the RSU sortation system induction platform.

The induction platform contains two manual induction stations. Here, inductors remove single items from each tote and place them onto moving trays on the RSU.

The RSU Tilting Tray Sorter consists of tilted carrying trays traveling on an enclosed track conveyor. This particular sortation system configuration is a double level design, where there are two levels of diverts and chutes on each side of the sorter.

Each tray is tilted toward the inductor, which allows for easy induction of product. The inductors place all products on the trays oriented so that the attached barcodes can be read easily by the overhead scanner system. When the tote is empty, it is placed on an overhead conveyor systems, which transports the totes back to the order fulfillment area.

After the scanner reads the barcode, the data is transmitted to the sorter control system, which looks up the barcode in the database table and sends the divert destination to the PLC.

The PLC receives real-time input information from the sorter through the use of encoders and photoeyes, and communicates to the control system through an Ethernet network. It tracks the product while it is on the RSU sorter.

When a product reaches its proper destination, the PLC actuates a divert mechanism that releases the bottom edge of the tray. The tray “door” opens and the product slides from the tray onto a steel chute and into a bin container.

Overflow protection is used to limit the number of pieces sorted to a lane before the operator clears the lane. Backup lanes can also be configured to accept pieces destined for lanes that have reached the overflow limit.

The sorter control system polls the PLC for statistical information, which is available for display on various statistics screens.

For additional productivity

When the RSU sortation system is not being used for processing outbound orders, it is also utilized for returns processing.

Product that has been returned and needs to be returned to stock can also be sorted on the RSU. By switching modes from Outbound to Returns, the RSU will sort products that are inducted to a user-defined product destination table.

Multiple products can be assigned to a single destination, as necessary, but a single product cannot be assigned to more than one lane.

By sorting the prescriptions by product, the products can be easily returned to the proper stock location.

Returns can be assigned to any of the 399 destination lanes. Overflow protection and backup lane functionality work the same as with the outbound mode.

Pack-out tables are located adjacent to the destination bin containers. Operators pack items from the destination bins and then place them into shipping cartons. When a shipping carton is filled, the operator secures the open carton flaps, and then pushes the carton onto the powered take-away conveyor located under the sorter.

The cartons are then transported to the packing area where they are packed, sealed and then sent to a shipping workstation where they are labeled for direct shipment to the correctional facility.