Alliance Healthcare Deutschland GmbH

Our Client

Alliance Healthcare Deutschland (AHD) together with GEHE is a major partner for pharmacies in Germany, supplying them with more than 250,000 available medicines and other health products. With more than 30 offices, AHD supplies medicinal products up to four times a day to pharmacies across Germany - in case of emergency within less than two hours.

Each shipment contains medicines from about ten of 1,500 producers on the market. Depending on the size of the branch, the assortment covers between 60,000 and 100,000 products.

The Challenge

The paper-based picking process in the wholesale warehouse was carried out manually. This resulted in time-consuming assignment of pharmaceutical products, with comparatively high error rates. What's more, the product inventory was managed inefficiently.

The aim was to introduce automated logistics control that would ensure crucial quality in the drug supply chain and prevent mix-up of medical preparations.

The Solution

The logistics processes are now paperless and controlled with a custom-fit SCM software. The warehouse staff use coordinated mobile terminals with simple and logical transactions on a graphical interface. They receive only the relevant order information in the form of a mobile dialog. Transparency and security for each customer order is ensured by bar code scanning and automatic identification of products and load carriers.

AHD achieves optimum investment protection thanks to the extended hardware service of ICS, which guarantees device replacement and repairs with minimal response times.

The Result

After integration of the automated logistics control, the error rate could be reduced in the long term through a standardized process. In addition, processing time per picking order has been significantly reduced so that productivity could be increased considerably. Employees benefit from simple and ergonomic workflows. Quality and efficiency within the GO-supply chain could increase vastly and workflows are simplified. Pharmacies and their customers now benefit from reliable medicine supply.