Case Study | Life Science warehouse automation

Life science companies require compliant and streamlined processing for their supply chain operations. This includes the need for proper warehouse automation that’s integrated and in real-time sync with the central system. This helps deliver visibility, control, and agility for spare part requisitions, inventory management, warehouse operational automation, etc.

A certain globally leading company was looking for such a solution.

• Their warehouse processes were manually collated, either on paper or in an excel sheet. This led to delays in creating and processing jobs on the floor.
• The manual work required the users to separately update the master database. This led to a lag within the connected/extended processes like asset, inventory, and supply chain management.
• The domino effect led to duplicate entries, a backlog of approvals, decision lag, and a lack of cross-functional visibility.
• Finding the right spare part, in the right time frame, was tough and complicated. There wasn’t a standard mechanism to identify and locate the product quickly. This led to delays in asset maintenance or other plant operations.
• Every act, like picking up and shipping the spare part, had to be manually logged into the system. This was the case even when the package was simply moved from one bin to another within the warehouse.

Read more: Case Study | Top life science major uses Crave for Non-Returnable Gate Pass (NRGP)

The life science industry has specific criteria and requirements that are unique to its processes. These companies want a solution configured to their special problem statement. This problem statement reflects their high compliance, accountability, interoperability, the direction of approvals (DOA), specific product handling, process, operational visibility, etc.

It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. We know this at Crave InfoTech. We are engineers first and always look for the best solution. This is how we built and structured our products specifically suited to the life science or pharmaceutical industry.

Hence, we have had multiple successful and long-lasting use-cases within the global industry. Such expertise is earned through ground-level execution and experience. We are active and sought-after SAP and Zebra Technologies partners.

The client showcased herewith partnered with Crave InfoTech to automate their warehouse operations. Through us, they…

• fully digitized their warehouse;
• improved their inventory management – including spare parts management;
• optimized warehouse job creation and assignment from within a single dashboard;
• streamlined job workflow from a simplified cWarehouse app;
• real-time tracking of all warehouse jobs, even bin-to-bin movement;
• instant scanning of barcodes/QR codes on items and bins for full automation;
• instant sync of all work data with the central master database (online and offline capabilities available);
• full enterprise mobility with portable printers for an on-the-spot label or QR code printing;
• full supply chain visibility and agility, with proper status notifications for all stakeholders;
• fully compliant processes with total accountability, visibility, agility; etc.

Read more: Powering the Life Science Industry with an Intelligent Warehouse Management System (WMS)

The client had multiple plants and warehouses across the country. We had to survey and review the requirements of each plant and warehouse to gain the exact user feedback. We collated all the ground-level information to configure the ideal user experience/interface and workflow. This intuitive workflow would be simple to use and easy to adopt for all shop floor users and managers.

Next, we structured the roll-out across all the plants and warehouses in a way that minimized downtime.

The time-to-value was almost immediate as the user adoption was through the roof and the satisfaction rates were high. Quickly, all plants and warehouses were in sync with a collaborative database, resulting in higher cross-functional visibility and agility.

The big picture is thus. Apart from the core warehouse operational and visibility boost, the asset management within the plants also was significantly improved. The facility or plant managers knew the exact availability of each spare part and the associated lead time (for the arrival). They could budget their resources and downtime accordingly to maximize overall throughput and efficiency.

Read more: How Intelligent Asset Management wins it for the Life Science Industry

• Streamlined the inbound, outbound, and internal warehousing process by bringing automation by way of scanning the barcodes/QR codes and fetching the data from SAP for executing the transaction code resulting in reducing paperwork and turnaround time.
• Automation of processes with the user ID, date, and time capture when a user performs the transaction.
• Physical Inventory verification by scanning with a device to minimize the stock mismatch between system stock and physical stock.
• Simplified workflow to ensure optimization of warehouse operations. This helped reduce the previous lag within the supply chain. It meant that the plants had visibility of the available spare parts and were able to acquire them (in time) easily.
• Scannable devices and applications can be downloaded on any mobile device like tablets, IPAD, mobile phones as well as desktops.
• Users are working in a fully integrated environment due to seamless integration with multiple modules.

Read more: How Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) can transform the life sciences industry

Some metrics:

• 80% (approx.) reduction in the total cost of ownership
• 100% paperless processes
• 15% labor cost per unit handled
• 35% reduction in put away the goods time
• 35% reduction in Warehouse Operating costs

If this case study interests you, and you would require something similar for your enterprise – reach out to us.