September 24 2015
Healthcare Company Benefits from Warehouse Automation
By Staci Cretu M.S., Marketing and Communicaitons Manager
Grifols, a global healthcare company producing life-saving protein therapies and products, built a new plasma logistics center in Clayton, North Carolina. The new center developed in partnership with ESI Group USA and Westfalia Technologies, Inc. handles cold storage (-35C) of plasma blood products, the suitability inspection of plasma units according to tight quality standards and the shipment of frozen plasma via truck and/or ocean container to the Grifols’ manufacturing plants.
Westfalia’s AS/RS allows Grifols to store product 9 levels in a 17,273 square foot system. This provides a pallet storage capacity of 5,148 pallet positions with throughput estimates of 60 pallets per hour per Satellite® Retrieval Machine (S/RM). Controlling the movement of blood plasma inventory throughout the warehouse is Westfalia’s warehouse execution system Savanna.NET®. Savanna.NET provides complete control over all material flow throughout Grifols operations in Clayton, integrating directly with their host interface.
Westfalia designed Grifols’ system to store various types of product sizes with the flexibility of expanding the AS/RS with additional aisles in the future. This will allow Grifols to adapt to changing market conditions over time and remain committed to operating in sophisticated modern facilities.