Festo AG & Co. KG
P. O. Box
73726 Esslingen
Phone +49 711 347-4032
www.festo.com
Ruiter Straße 82
73734 Esslingen
Press release
Number
IPK 07/2012
Date
18 June 2012
Our reference
TM-IP/HAUG
Legal form:
Limited partnership
Registered office: Esslingen a. N.
Register court Stuttgart
COR 211583
Value added tax id. number:
DE 145 339 206
General partner:
Festo Management
Aktiengesellschaft
Registered office: Vienna/Austria
Commercial register court:
Commercial court Vienna
COR FN 303027 d
Board of Director:
Dipl.-Kfm. Alfred Goll
Dr. Claus Jessen
Dr. Ansgar Kriwet
Dipl.-Kfm. Michael Mölleken
Dr. Eberhard Veit (Chairman)
Chairman of the Supervisory Board:
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Joachim Milberg
Keeping the costs of healthcare down
Automated warehousing for surgical instruments
The world’s first fully automated, sterile warehouse for surgical instruments has been placed into operation at a hospital in Copenhagen. The system makes a genuine contribution to curbing the costs of healthcare: it saves labour costs amounting to ten man-years. Electric drives and clean design components from Festo ensure that everything runs reliably and smoothly.
The surgeons carry out at least sixty operations every day. The hospital’s IT specialists recognised that getting the surgical instruments ready for the operating room involved a great deal of time and money – not to mention the fact that sometimes the packages contained incorrect instruments. In this case, considerable effort had to be invested in setting things aright.
A small sensation
Although automated warehouse management systems are common practice in industry, a system for cleaning and picking surgical instruments at a hospital was a small sensation. “But the system functioned faultlessly right from the very first day”, reports Lars Vinge, production manager for Danish automation specialist Gibotech.
In just ten days during normal operation, Gibotech installed a globally unique system with pilot project character for the field of healthcare in the cramped basement rooms of a new building at the hospital.
Using resources sensibly
The system eliminates the need for hospital personnel to manually handle heavy baskets of surgical instruments with steps including order picking, cleaning, sterilising, storage and withdrawal for scheduled operations. As a result, it saves labour costs amounting to ten man-years and frees up resources which the hospital is thus able to use for other investments.
The warehouse has 1900 storage locations and 1800 baskets, which are all equipped with RFID labels. The system is capable of handling up to 100 transactions a day. At the current level of 60 operations carried out each day by the surgeons, the system’s capacity is not yet exhausted. Each basket has a processing time of five to ten minutes.
Handling systems
Personnel manually loads wire baskets with surgical instruments which are cleaned in sterile washing machines. The baskets with the instruments are then lined with hygienic crepe paper, which is not damaged during the sterilisation process in the autoclaves. During the next step, the personnel assembles the instruments into operation-specific packages, depending on requirements for operations scheduled for the next day. The wire baskets are consigned to the storage system where they can be easily located with the help of barcodes, RFID and data sheets. Handling systems make it easier to find the storage locations.
Festo electric axes EGC are at the heart of the handling system. They distribute the baskets to the rack system’s 1900 storage locations with great precision and reliability. Wherever the surgical instruments might come into close proximity to system components, clean design pneumatic components from the CRDSNU range are used, which are certified in accordance with cleanroom class 8. Valve terminals CPX/MPA are installed in a decentralised fashion and connected to Rockwell controllers via Ethernet/IP.
Excellent availability
The very pure and dry atmosphere within the system is a challenge for all of the drives. “But neither the pneumatic nor the electric drives from Festo had any problems in this respect”, stresses project manager Vinge. On the contrary, planned system availability was 97%. “At the moment we’re even reaching a peak value of 98.5%”, reports Vinge, who hopes to inspire other hospitals all over the world with this reference system. After all, the system really helps keep the costs of healthcare down.
www.gibotech.dk
Please refer to: / Festo press photo IPK 0712 Copenhagen 1.tifCaption to illustration: / Historical façade – modern automation technology: the world’s first fully automated, sterile warehouse for surgical instruments has been placed into operation at a hospital in Copenhagen (Photo: Festo)
Please refer to: / Festo press photo IPK 0712 Copenhagen 2.tif
Caption to illustration: / 1900 storage locations: the warehouse is large enough to handle 100 operations a day. (Photo: Festo)
Please refer to: / Festo press photo IPK 0712 Copenhagen 3.tif
Caption to illustration: / Relief for the budget, and for personnel: quick and simple operation instead of manual handling of heavy baskets loaded with surgical instruments. (Photo: Festo)
Please refer to: / Festo press photo IPK 0712 Copenhagen 4.tif
Caption to illustration: / The heart of the handling system: highly precise and reliable electric axes EGC. (Photo: Festo)
Please refer to: / Festo press photo IPK 0712 Copenhagen Vinge.tif
Caption to illustration: / “We’re reaching a peak value of 98.5% system availability”, explains Lars Vinge, production manager at Gibotech.
(Photo: Festo)
Press text and photos are also available online at www.festo.com/press.