Features/Benefits Provided: Increased storage density via a mini load AS/RS with 14,490 rack locations Enables same day order, assembly, and shipping Ensures 100% accuracy of custom-assembled surgery kits destined for hospitals worldwide A mini load AS/RS helps a Daifuku America medical client quickly process orders with a high-speed crane capable of moving 984 feet per minute horizontally and 207 feet per minute vertically.

A medical client manufactures products to diagnose, prevent, and monitor chronic conditions. In one distribution center, custom kits containing surgery instruments and implantable parts are assembled and shipped daily. Each kit is custom built to order. The client tracks each kit loaned to hospitals until they are returned after the surgery is complete. Materials left in the kit after surgery are sterilized, bagged, placed back into cases with other replenished items, and stored until the kit is shipped to another customer. When a surgery is performed and the hospital consumes a kit, it is immediately replenished. Each kit must be assembled with 100% accuracy and shipped the same day it is ordered.

Before automating the pre-shipping buffering process with an Automated Storage & Retrieval System (AS/RS), the client was challenged to meeting shipment deadlines due to the amount of labor involved in manually picking items from conventional racking and in delivering kits to the correct customer. In the company’s new facility, a three-aisle mini load AS/RS holds assembled and ready-to-ship kits. Kits weighing up to 50 pounds are placed onto cardboard trays for conveyance throughout the facility. After a kit is assembled, it travels by elevated conveyor to the AS/RS. Each tray has a bar code and may stay in the AS/RS for a few days before an order in placed and the storage retrieval machine receives a command via the warehouse control system (WCS) to move it out of storage and to shipping.

The AS/RS was installed in four months as part of a larger project to improve operational efficiency. The facility has additional floor space to expand the AS/RS in the future, if necessary.

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5202 Douglas Corrigan Way
Salt Lake City, UT 84116
(801) 359-9900
info@DaifukuAmerica.com
www.DaifukuAmerica.com