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The Challenge
The existing Leavenworth, Kansas Consolidated Mail Out Pharmacy (CMOP) required a new and larger facility to house their current prescription filling system. The new system was required to produce double the throughput of the existing system (20,000 prescriptions per 8 hours). In addition to the design and specification of the system, the Veterans Administration required a simulation model of the proposed system to verify throughput rates and staffing requirements.
The objective of the model were are follows:
- To determine areas of bottlenecks.
- To determine the maximum throughput of the system.
- To identify resource requirements and staffing levels.
- To identify divert logic and system control logic for tote routing.
- Determine which speed to run the conveyor (90 or 120 FPM).
The model included the following items:
- Tote Conveyors
- Automated Pill Counting Machines
- Automated Unit of Use Machine
- Quality Checking
- Packing Operation
Results
- Several of the diverts or right angle transfers (RATs) required bypass logic. By pass logic ,in short, allows totes to move across or through a divert while other totes are also traveling within the divert. This eliminated congestion in those areas as well as prevented tote starvation downstream.
- The system obtains throughput when the main conveyor system runs at a higher speed. Only the two main conveyor loops need to run at least 90 fpm. The system runs at a slightly higher throughput rate at 120 fpm, however, the additional cost of the conveyor, stops and other devices might justify the lower of the two speeds.
- If the RX check rate is faster than 15 seconds per RX, then 7 RX checkers can be used in the system. Otherwise, the eighth pharmacist should be added. If the system is to have higher throughput then the results show, then the eighth pharmacist will be needed.
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