The largest distributor of pharmaceutical & healthcare products in Asia-Pacific upgrades to the latest version of PULSE.WMS |
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Zuellig Pharma services over 125 multinational research-based pharmaceutical manufacturers in 14 countries and more than 80,000 direct customers.
Zuellig Pharma Corporation recently commissioned the latest version of the PULSE advanced Warehouse Management System at its Canlubang Distribution Centre in the Philippines.
Zuellig Pharma is the only truly regional distributor of pharmaceutical and healthcare products in Asia-Pacific. At more than four times the size of its nearest competitor, the company is the industry leader in providing marketing, distribution, and manufacturing services. Zuellig Pharma services over 125 multinational research-based pharmaceutical manufacturers in 14 countries and more than 80,000 direct customers.
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| The Zuellig Canlubang DC provides a range of key distribution services in the Philippines, for 46 of the world’s leading health care principals. These include companies such as Abbott, AstraZeneca, Aventis, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Novartis and Pfizer.
In the Philippines, Zuellig Pharma services 70 percent of the nation’s pharmaceutical consumption using the PULSE WMS. This is via its 13,000 direct customers who include hospitals, pharmacies, medical centres, and in-house health clinics.
The physical side of Zuellig Pharma's Canlubang operation is equally IT focused. Handling some 25,000 product items (SKUs), more than 15,000 order line items per day, and over 40,000 individual orders per month, the DC was the first in Asia to implement an advanced warehouse management system (WMS). It was similarly the first to link its shop floor staff to such a system using RF terminals. |
Director of Operations Maikel Kuijpers said, “The WMS developed and implemented by PULSE Logistics Systems has not only helped in contributing to major cost reductions but, quite simply, is something that we could not run our present day operations without. Given our size, and highly demanding operational requirements, the system provides the indispensable control that's needed over all customer orders, inventory, our people, and materials handling equipment and other resources.
We continually see ourselves as one of the region's leaders in the application of cutting edge technology. Not for technologies sake, but for the effective business benefits that this delivers to the company, our principals and our customers.”
Zuellig Pharma's IS0 9001:2000 certified Canlubang DC is housed in a 20,000m2 facility with a storage capacity of 22,000 pallets. Utilising specialised superflat floor construction, the centre also boasts a 120-metre span, columnless superstructure, which was another regional first. Fit-out includes 14-metre high-rise VNA pallet storage, with 8,000m2 of racking air-conditioned for product storage below 25º Celcius. Materials handling equipment includes six turret trucks and two high-level order pickers. This equipment and specially designed multi-order picking trolleys are linked to the PULSE WMS via more than 40 RF terminals. The PULSE WMS also controls the fully automatic conveyor in-line weighing scales, and contents checking of all orders picked into both totes and cartons, and the conveyor sortation of all order packages into despatch grids, ready for delivery to customers.
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Maikel Kuijpers, Zuellig Pharma Corporation (left), with Kerry Hutchings of PULSE Logistics Systems at Zuellig’s impressive Canlubang Distribution Centre in the Philippines. | | In reviewing Canlubang's use of WMS and advanced materials handling systems, Maikel Kuijpers notes that these all make substantial contributions to cost reduction, quality of storage, and customer service enhancements in their own right. However, he stresses that the ongoing improvements made in these areas are achieved through Zuellig Pharma's continued close partnership with its key systems' suppliers.
"Our objective is to go on fine tuning our operations and at any time there are a number of specific areas in which we believe we need to and can improve our performance. Because we really do understand the tools we use, we are then able to sit down with people like PULSE and work with them to see how their systems can help us achieve what we want to. It is amazing how much can be extracted from a system when this process is followed," Kuijpers says. |
| Why PULSE.WMS?
Ask yourself why are so many growing organisations implementing WMS alongside their existing or new business systems such as ERP and MRP? – As organisations struggle with diminishing product margins and less room for price negotiation they are turning attention to often out of control and increasing Supply Chain costs. Following meticulous reviews of their existing and new business system requirements, savvy companies have identified that the ERP warehousing modules on offer just don’t have deep enough functionality to strip costs out of their supply chain, and cannot match their competitors who are operating with an advanced WMS.
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