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Automation for pharmaceutical and healthcare distribution

A pharma DC isn’t a general warehouse with nicer shelving. Accuracy expectations are close to absolute, cold chain excursions cost real money, controlled substances bring their own security rules, and every unit has to be traceable. ELMAT Group’s founder spent seven years inside one of the country’s largest pharmaceutical distributors, leading corporate operations and projects around exactly these constraints.

Talk about a pharma project

What’s different about pharma

Traceability built into the flow

DSCSA serialization and verification have to fit the pick, pack and ship process without becoming the bottleneck. Scan points, exception handling and data handoffs get designed in, not bolted on.

Cold chain and controlled environments

Refrigerated and frozen storage, staging that doesn’t leave product sitting on a dock, and automation rated for the temperature it actually runs in.

Controlled substances

Vaults and cages, access control and the audit trail around them. Automation inside a secured area raises questions about maintenance access that need answers before design is final.

Specialty and high-value product

Small orders, high unit value and fast turnaround. Goods-to-person and high-accuracy picking often beat bigger, faster systems here.

Experience from the buy side

At AmerisourceBergen’s ICS division, ELMAT Group’s founder, Jovan Bjelobrk, led corporate operations, project management and continuous improvement, and served on the division’s executive leadership team. That included introducing automated material handling into the largest pharmaceutical specialty distribution center in the network, and guiding more than $100 million in infrastructure expansion across Australia, Europe, South America, the US, Canada and Mexico.

It also included WMS implementations that moved wholesale distribution centers from manual pick and pack to automated operations.

“The Pharma industry is very complicated and Jovan’s knowledge of business processes allows him to cultivate a solution that will lead to a successful result.”

Sr. Director, Office of Compliance Operations (LinkedIn recommendation)

Typical engagements

Master planning for a new or expanded pharma DC. Vendor selection for goods-to-person, ASRS or mobile robots in a regulated environment. Second opinions on an integrator’s proposal. Program management for an automation retrofit in a building that can’t stop shipping while the work happens.

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