Pharmaceutical supplier Sanacorp and KNAPP have been working together for decades. The first site where automated systems were implemented was the Sanacorp subsidiary in Ulm. Today, 15 Sanacorp sites use KNAPP’s automation technology, including conveyor systems and central belt auto pickers tailored specifically to pharmaceutical wholesale requirements.
Combined with Sanacorp’s own software landscape, the KNAPP technology ensures stable operating performance without downtime and high order processing efficiency. This supports Sanacorp in the fulfilment of its quality promise: to supply customers reliably and on time.
Complete transparency with KNAPP-Store
Sanacorp now also relies on new KNAPP technology at its subsidiary in Bad Segeberg. KNAPP-Store is used for the slow-moving article range, which increases the degree of automation considerably. With KNAPP-Store, KNAPP meets current pharmaceutical industry requirements – among other things, the autopicker supports lot tracking and the recognition of security features, thereby providing transparency of all stored articles.
Along with the KNAPP-Store, the high-performance SDA autopicker is used for processing fast-moving articles at Sanacorp, which allows high order volumes to be processed efficiently and safely. Thanks to the fusion of central belt systems, KNAPP-Store and SDA, the fastest and most expensive order lines can be processed within one system.
Article data capture with iScan
During receipt in the goods-in area, articles suitable for the KNAPP-Store are scanned and thereby allocated to an order container, which is then transferred on the conveyor to its storage work station. The work stations are equipped with an intuitive touch screen monitor for straightforward operation. There, the employee places the articles on the storage conveyor – no time-consuming pre-sorting necessary. The image recognition technology iScan captures all article data automatically, including the article’s measurements. Errors are therefore eliminated up front during movement into the KNAPP-Store.
High storage performance
The two-arm gripper system of the KNAPP-Store is in charge of automatic storage with a transfer gripper placing the articles on buffer trays. The grippers take the articles from the buffer trays and store them randomly in the KNAPP-Store. The buffer function allows a single person to operate all 4 KNAPP-Stores simultaneously. This way, Sanacorp achieves very high storage performance at minimum personnel costs.
“Errors are therefore eliminated up front during movement into the KNAPP-Store.”
Monitoring the article’s features with precision is easy with the KNAPP-Store. Articles with a specific date mark, lot or serial number can be retrieved at the touch of a button and be picked in due time. That’s why the KNAPP-Store is a particularly efficient for returns that require considerable organisational effort to be fed back into the picking procedure, due to different lot numbers and date marks.
Efficient picking
“The two-arm gripper system of the KNAPP-Store is in charge of automatic storage with a transfer gripper placing the articles on buffer trays.”
When it comes to picking, the gripper moves to the specified position, picks up the requested articles, and transfers them to the buffer boxes on the retrieval side of the KNAPP-Store. The buffer boxes transfer the articles to an allotted order space on the central belt conveyor in the same way as the fast-moving auto-picker SDA does. At the transfer station the articles are dropped into the dispatch container. All articles of an order are consolidated from all picking areas such as the manual area or the cold-storage area and once the order is completed, the articles are transported towards the goods-out area. A lid is automatically placed on the containers before they are ready to be loaded and dispatched to the pharmacies.
For more information contact Michael Kemeny on +61 428 884 177, email Michael.Kemeny@Knapp.com or visit www.knapp.com.
About Sanacorp
Founded in 1924, Sanacorp is the oldest pharmacy cooperative in Germany and is one of the leading companies in pharmaceutical wholesale. Sanacorp is a company run by pharmacists for pharmacists. Its 16 regional branches across Germany ensure the comprehensive, economical and reliable delivery of medicines and health products to 8,000 pharmacies. Sanacorp also supports pharmacists with market-appropriate strategies and measures ranging from logistics to quality management and marketing activities, in order to promote the competitiveness of independent pharmacists and ensure their independence.
- Space-saving storage and efficient picking of a broad range of products is possible with the KNAPP-Store.
- The innovative central belt combination of KNAPP-Store and fast-moving autopicker boosts both quality and efficiency at Sanacorp.
- Automatic capturing of product master data with iScan.
- The KNAPP-Store is easy to operate via a touch screen.
- Optimal storage density and low storage location costs.
- The fusion of central belt systems, KNAPP-Store and SDA allows the fastest and most expensive order lines to be processed within one system.