Cleveland Clinic: a prescription for health care reform: a premier medical center transformed a manual, paper-based warehouse into a state-of-the-art facility using automated technologies to deliver supplies to 14,000 locations.(special report: Innovation Winner)
A sign outside the new 227,000-square-foot service center underneath the Cleveland Clinic's parking garage says it all: Service to our patients starts here.
"That is our motto," says Jeff Pepperworth, senior director of materials management for the clinic, one of the nation's premier medical facilities. "We are picking an average of 70,000 units a day and many of those are critical to the treatment of a patient."
To live up to that motto, the clinic went through a logistics version of health care reform: Pepperworth and his team visited medical centers in Europe to design a system with capabilities similar to a just-in-time manufacturing environment and a direct-to-consumer e-fulfillment operation.
The result is a state-of-the-art distribution and order fulfillment center that went live in September 2008. The facility manages the …
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Modern Materials Handling; March 1, 2010
Modern Materials Handling; March 1, 2010
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