Pharmaceutical distributor uses VRC to combat growth

As the seventh largest wholesaler in the United States—and the fastest growing distributor of its kind—Rochester Drug Cooperative (RDC) purchases a warehouse to serve a market worth approximately two-thirds of its annual sales: the greater New York City area. For eight months, RDC remodeled its Fairfield, N.J.-based facility, eventually transforming it into a highly sophisticated, automated distribution center, prior to serving customers in July 2015.

RDC’s primary additions included an A-frame automated product picking system, an extensive system of conveyors and carousels, and a 10,000-square-foot mezzanine that increased the warehouse’s size to 106,000 square feet. While the mezzanine itself may be the least sophisticated of the warehouse additions, it is the hub of the automated picking operation at the facility.

The totes that gather the individual store orders are first introduced to the system on the mezzanine, along with a code that identifies their unique product selections for the day. Once the totes have been routed through the conveyors to gather requisite products on the ground floor, they pass through the mezzanine again—for quality control checks, as well as the insertion of any paperwork and promotional materials before they are conveyed to the truck loading area.

Though the active totes come and go through the intricate conveyor system, the central supply route that keeps the mezzanine hub in operation is a two-post hydraulic material lift. Commonly known as a vertical reciprocating conveyor (VRC), the lift provides a safe and reliable means to keep the mezzanine supplied with the reusable totes that come back from the field, along with consumable materials that are integral to the order fulfillment process.

RDC’s VRC has a 3,000 load capacity, enough to handle two pallets of empty totes or consumable supplies. Materials are transported from the ground floor to the mezzanine (a distance of 13 feet and 6 inches) at a speed of 24 feet per minute—or, in 30 seconds.

“For safety and efficiency, it is far better to transport materials to the mezzanine with the VRC, [rather] than a forklift,” says Gary Ritzmann, project manager of RDC. “Plus, the mezzanine is almost 14-feet high, so using a forklift is precarious at best, and we are trying to keep motorized vehicles away from all order processing equipment.”