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Robotics lifts Pfizer pick efficiency

Thirteen gantry robots increase throughput and greatly improve ergonomics at Pfizer's logistics center.

PICK PLUSES. With Pfizer's new robotic-driven automated picking system, the ergonomic improvements are huge. It handles approxim
PICK PLUSES. With Pfizer's new robotic-driven automated picking system, the ergonomic improvements are huge. It handles approxim

A new, labor-saving automated picking system at Pfizer Consumer Healthcare (PCH) Logistics has lifted a weighty burden from operators and increased throughput at Pfizer's Lititz, PA, Logistics Center. In fact, the system handles 2,000,000 lb of product monthly that operators no longer lift, according to Steve Smith, Pfizer's engineering manager, who was part of a team that spearheaded the project. That's more than a ton per worker per shift.

To appreciate the operational improvement brought by the new system, it helps to understand something of the operations. Each day operators build mixed pallets for customers such as Wal-Mart, Target, and other well-known retailers. They accomplish this by steering a pallet jack down the center of a long aisle bordered by pallets filled with corrugated cases of product. An onboard computer suggests a pick path sequence for pallet building. If their assignment is to build a pallet with two full layers of Listerine, two full layers of Lubriderm, and then two additional layers that contain a mix of Pfizer's' other brands, they stop their pallet jack at as many locations as required to build their assigned pallet load.

Before the new gantry system was commissioned, operators would load full layers manually. Now, for a full layer, they push a button and wait for a robotic device to pick the entire layer and place it on their pallet jack. The only lifting required is for individual layers that contain a mix of products.

The Layer Handling System (LHS) that brought this improvement to Pfizer is supplied by Automated Motion Inc. (AMI) (www.automated-motion.com). It was started up in March.

“We began looking a couple of years ago for a method that could pick full layers, yet still work within a system where some layers were not going to be full,” says Smith. He found what he was looking for at a trade show in Europe when he saw the Uni-Gripper, an automated package gripping system from Sweden-based Tepro Inc. (www.tepro.nu) that is uniquely suitable for handling full layers of corrugated cases. That led him to AMI, Tepro's U.S. representative.

“We found that the Uni-Gripper could consistently handle 600 different cased items, all different in weights, shapes, and sizes,” says Smith. The only prerequisite, of course, is that the layer consists of identical cases.

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