The six greenfield sites may resemble each other, but they are unique in the industry for their productivity. At peak, they can process 100,000 lines per night.
By Tom Andel, Editor-In-Chief -- Modern Materials Handling, 1/1/2008
AmerisourceBergen's six new greenfield distribution centers are configured for an L-shaped flow starting at receiving. Forty percent of the facility is dedicated to case and palletized reserve storage. An automated A-frame product dispensing system was set up on a platform above manual picking and in the controlled substances area to process high-volume orders.
The warehouse management system (WMS) allocates inventory by item. More than 100,000 controlled locations exist at each site.=
Triage for incoming
The WMS directs deliveries into a staging area for putaway. When receipts are scanned, the WMS calculates whether the item is new or in stock. If there's room in the active pick shelves, it can go directly there. If active is topped off, it goes to reserve storage (pallet or case). The system will calculate the most efficient path to storage, with the least drive time.
The day has staggered starts at 5 a.m., 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. Receipts can include everything from consumer goods products to high-value pharmaceuticals or vials containing temperature-sensitive biopharmaceuticals.
Controlled substances, as well as refrigerated products, are priority one and scanned and segregated as soon as they arrive. The refrigerated products go by pallet truck to the refrigerator and controlled substances go to secured storage areas. These areas are behind the shipping doors, and access to them is limited to associates who are cleared for entry via RF key card.
The next priority is flammable items and those are scanned and moved to a fire-rated room with a containment pit. Aerosol storage, which is a fire-rated structure with armored walls and automatically closing cutoff doors, is on the other side.
The doors behind the pallet rack are for receiving large bulky items, such as paper goods and nutritionals. Those items are destined for reserve storage as palletized goods.
On the other side of the palletized reserve area is loose-case reserve, where narrow-aisle racks are serviced by wire guided order picker trucks. Over-the-road truck receiving is done at the doors behind this area. Conveyors move less-than-case items across the top of the reserve rack, into a merge and into the manual pick zones or to the A-frame.
Replenishment
The WMS can meter replenishment activity to suit the day's workload. The goal is to have every pick slot topped off before the night pick starts. At tote induction, workers load short stacks of small and large totes into stackers to fill a buffer of 20-high stacks to support four hours of production. De-stackers release individual totes into cleaners. Totes are then scanned and married to specific orders. This information is communicated to WMS and all sub systems.
Picking
In the picking areas, items are scanned and dispensed into totes. In manual picking there are seven pick loops, each with three zones, for a combined 21 manual pick zones. Fast-moving prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) products are automatically picked to totes by an A-frame. It is like a 300-foot-long vending machine with 4,000 channels. The 2,200 SKUs in the A-frame account for up to 50% of all prescription and OTC line picks.
Upon order completion, totes are conveyed to the label, lid and strap area where totes are sealed and addressed before they are routed to shipping, where they are sorted and palletized by delivery route/stop.
AmerisourceBergen, Chesterbrook, Pa.
Products handled: Generic and name brand pharmaceuticals and healthcare products
Customers: Nearly 10,000 chain and independent pharmacies as well as thousands of hospitals, nursing homes and mail-order pharmacies.
Size: 300,000 square feet (expandable to 600,000 square feet)
Employees: About 180 per facility (on staggered shifts)
SKUs: 30-40,000
Shipment capacity per facility: 100,000 lines per night
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