DePuy, Inc. is a major medical device manufacturer and distributor. Its distribution center near Bridgewater, Mass. ships medical devices on a just-in-time basis directly to hospitals. It also ships them just-in-time to its U.S. sales force of individual representatives who deliver the devices to hospitals.
Being the oldest manufacturer of orthopedic implants in the United States, DePuy is a family of companies under the Johnson & Johnson corporate umbrella. The DePuy distribution center serves the shipping needs of several affiliated manufacturing companies, each located nearby. DePuy Spine, DePuy Orthopedics, and DePuy Mitek, as well as the Codman company and other suppliers that have come to depend upon DePuy's reliable distribution performance.
From a distribution center of just 92,000 square feet and with the help of automated vertical and horizontal storage and retrieval equipment from KardexRemstar, DePuy annually ships medical devices to support over 500,000 surgeries. The products shipped include spine implants, surgical instruments, and replacement kits for new knees, hips, elbows and others. DePuy's customers and the nature of the medical manufacturing industry drive the company to achieve a high level of excellence and accuracy. DePuy supplies the correct medical devices to the correct hospitals and surgeons, ensuring the items are delivered on time.
"A surgeon may schedule tomorrow's surgery for noon," says Dave Johnson, director of distribution, DePuy, Inc., "placing the order with us for the needed medical device today."
DePuy delivers with a very high degree of accuracy and with just-in-time speed and immediacy. Since same-day turnaround is common practice for most orders going out the door, getting the order correct is imperative.
Demanding Compliance Criteria
DePuy distribution must answer to Johnson & Johnson internal policies. The DC also must pass inspections from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. The facility also is ISO certified. Others set high requirements as well; a surgeon demands a specific type and size of device to make a new knee for a patient. 'Compliance to quality assurance procedures is common practice with what we do,' says Johnson.
The DC achieves these excellence and accuracy objectives with a combination of automated material handling systems. The facility's systems include horizontal carousels as well as vertical lift modules and vertical carousels, which fulfill a quality control role for the distribution center as well. The vertical storage units and horizontal carousels together with their order selection software ensure that picking accuracy exceeds 99.9%, says Johnson. These systems also save floor space, he adds, as does their high-density storage capability.
High Volume Output
Working three shifts daily on a six-day week, this DC selects orders from a total of 14,000 active DePuy stock keeping units (SKUs). Each order averages five or six lines. The DC ships an average of 2,200 orders each night. About 70% to 80% of these shipments are for overnight delivery, says Johnson, making the DC the stockroom for many surgeons.
Much of this daily volume is packed in small parcels, he adds. Significantly, outbound parcels include many high-value items. In fact, some shipments are worth several thousand dollars. With shipment values this high, it's important to maintain tight controls over DC inventory. It's also vital to ensure a high degree of accuracy in picking, packing, and shipping these medical devices.
Johnson says that DePuy's materials handling philosophy is 'to create an efficient and effective distribution system with as close to flawless execution as possible.'
To ensure high picking accuracy, and to eliminate errors, Johnson says, he requires bar code scans several times during the picking of each item. Order selection activities involving picking and order verification from horizontal carousels and a VLM are automated. Quality assurance documentation involves the use of a vertical carousel for file storage in the quality control lab.
Three horizontal carousels are grouped together with 3,800 SKUs. On an evening shift a single operator, assisted by the carousels' light trees and software providing exact pick instructions, pulls outbound orders from this system.
"Picking accuracy is well over 99.9 percent," says Johnson. "The carousel software does all the sorting and picking for us," he adds.
Productivity And The Ease of Automation
Faster moving items are staged in the carousels' more ergonomic picking zone for ease of picking, says Johnson.
Each night, within a time span of three to four hours, the lone carousel operator picks 500 orders. During the day shift, an additional 150 'emergency' orders, with 3 to 4 lines per order, are picked from the horizontal carousels. Before the use of this technology, it took five operators picking batch orders to match this one person's productivity.
DePuy's vertical lift module holds some 2,000 kits of spine implants and surgical instruments. On a daily basis, orders for 150 to 250 kits are picked, and about the same number replenished in the VLM.
"Order selection from the VLM is a lot easier than going looking for these kits on shelving," says Johnson. With the VLM access opening presenting the kits at a comfortable working level for picking and replenishing, there's reduced fatigue for operators which increases productivity.
Two vertical carousels are located in the packing and redress area. Here they perform such functions as product segregation and labeling, explains Johnson. A VLM stages materials prior to inspection and keeps them separated and organized, explains Johnson. Before the surgeon's hands can work the wonders of hip and knee replacements, DePuy distribution manages the last link in the supply chain for these surgeries.
Quality Assured
These, among other efforts, are necessary to satisfy requirements of the FDA's good manufacturing practices (GMPs) as well as to meet DePuy's ISO certification. All incoming items from all the Johnson & Johnson divisions that DePuy serves must undergo stringent quality control tests as do all items requiring sterilization before use. A vertical carousel conveniently stores and retrieves the paper documentation necessary for these efforts in less space than traditional cabinets or drawers would have, creating more space for the DC.
Through DePuy's use of a variety of automated material handling systems, the surgeon is supplied with the right devices and instruments, on time and quality assured.