Boots opens new high-tech warehouse
The new highly automated Boots warehouse in Nottingham |
Boots opened a new, highly automated dispensing warehouse in Nottingham last week. The warehouse covers 100,000 sq ft and supplies about two
million prescription items per week to 1,260 Boots The Chemists stores
throughout the United Kingdom. It is the only one of its kind on a
single site in Europe and replaces two warehouses, one in Manchester
and one in Aldershot. Boots says that the £9.5m investment will
reduce supply chain costs by over £5m per annum.
The warehouse uses Knapp equipment which integrates automated and manual
picking processes. It is claimed to be accurate to 99.8 per cent. The
warehouse contains three A-frames, with a total length of 140 metres,
which handle the 1,620 fastest moving lines. They have 3,950 ejectors
that fire stock onto a conveyor belt at a rate of five packs per second.
The system operates with unique dispensing tote trays and Boots has 75,000
of these trays, representing approximately eight days’ throughput.
Currently about 50 per cent of items are picked automatically and 50
per cent are picked manually.
Extensive use of
barcode scanning has improved manual picking accuracy significantly.
Handheld scanning guns, linked to the warehouse management system, are
used to scan barcodes on the tote trays and on the products, and will
not allow the picker to choose the wrong product. The system also allows
the expiry date of every product to be recorded so that stock can be
rotated more efficiently.
Orders are received electronically by the warehouse throughout the day
until 6.30pm. They are then processed and delivered to the stores via
regional distribution centres and usually arrive by 9am the following
morning. Paul Bateman, Boots group operations director, said: “It
enables us to make daily deliveries of exact requirements to every one
of our pharmacies throughout the country, and is therefore a direct benefit
to our customers.” |
