Case Study

In 2018, the Dr. Max opened its first pharmacy in Italy to achieve a leadership position in the country, as they have done in other EU communities. In 2023, Dr. Max Italy demonstrated their efforts to become bigger in the Italian market with the acquisition of Neo Apotek SpA, a strategic move that elevated the total number of Dr. Max pharmacies to over 210 in Italy. At the same time, in 2024, with a commitment to continuous improvement and strengthening omnichannel services and the drmax.it e-commerce platform, the group pharmacy chain leader, centralized their services in Italy in a 14,000 sqm automated warehouse in Telgate (Bergamo).

What was the initial situation and the definition of the project?

During the last years, Dr. Max challenge themselves to create a new concept of pharmacy: more clear, distinctive and an appealing message to be a reference point for local communities. With more than 20,000 employees in 17 European countries and more than 3,000 pharmacies, Dr. Max is dedicated to improving the level of health care available by guaranteeing access to a broad assortment of medicines and pharmacy services.

Geekplus has provided Dr. Max with technological support on its way to becoming today’s pharmacy leader. In addition to the Italian site, Geekplus also improved order processing in three different warehouses in three different European countries (Czech Republic, Romania and Italy).

The new warehouse built in Telgate, Bergamo, by Dr. Max, covers a total surface of 14,000 sqm in which the flexible solutions from Geekplus are used in a surface of 1,300 sqm in its first phase in which more than 11,000 units are managed for both, e-commerce and retail deliveries for the Italian clients and pharmacies.

What challenges have to be overcome and how have they been solved?

The new Dr. Max warehouse in Telgate covers a total surface of 14,000 sqm in which the flexible solutions from Geekplus are used in a surface of 1,300 sqm in its first phase in which more than 11,000 units are managed for both, e-commerce and retail deliveries for the Italian clients and pharmacies. On average the system execute more than 200 totes/hour for one station and the total totes storage is more than 16,000.

What is the solution and what specific innovations / highlights does it offer?

The innovative Geekplus Tote-to-Person solution – tallest in the market – reaches the eight meters in the Italian warehouse, but it can be adapted to storage space in a 12-meter-high-warehouse. This new generation AS/RS system, consist of a small P40 picking robot which handle automated storage and retrieval of totes or cartons, and the RoboShuttle which work in the aisle to storage the totes in a double deep storage from the buffer area to the top and in the contrary way too. Therefore, the system achieves the highest efficiency in the same layout taking advantage of the height of the shuttle and the quickness of the small P40 which only picks the tote back and force. The highway is shared by both robots at the same time making possible to maximize the use of the total space available to reduce the travelling time.

The operational flow of the solution remains the following:

Both type of goods for e-commerce and pharmacies are replenished in the 4 different put-away working station for the inbound operations. In there, the small P40 robot take the goods inside a tote and travels towards the buffer area designated to place the order.
Once the tote is on the buffer level, the one of the 22 different RoboShuttles will transfer it automatically to the rack level which corresponds depending on the type of goods and save for following operation. At the same time, the robot takes some other totes to the buffer level too for the P40 robot to pick the tote for outbound operations.
Once again, one out of the 50 total P40 working together, will take the tote to deliver, finally, for outbound operations towards one of the 5 Tote-to-Person working stations.
Once at the working station, Dr. Max has implemented a system in which the e-commerce goods will be place in a carton box and the pharmacies’ ones will travel in a green plastic box.

What specific customer benefit does the solution offer?

Autonomous mobile robotic systems have consistently proven themselves in the logistics services segment. By using any of the company’s suite of Goods-to-Person solution, storage space can be used up to 5 times more Geffectively. Additional robots can be integrated without any interruptions to operations. Compared to the use of conventional automation solutions, the expansion in Telgate essentially proved to be the most economically effective solution, which, in addition to additional storage capacity, also creates the necessary freedom for future expansion plans.

A special technological feature is the orchestrated interaction of the software and automation components. Behind the scenes, all operational warehouse processes converge on the efficiency optimization strategy for the tote-location rematching. This is possible because of the analysis of the historical data. Then, the Geeplus Robot Management System, evaluates and makes a tote frequency with the ABC items. This dynamic adjustment makes it possible to position those hot items in a lower level in the rack to reduce the velocity of picking from the shuttle. At the same time, those items with more movements are located closer to the working station to shorten the P40 travel distance.

Project Timeline:

• Contract sign off: 2023/2/28
• Robot arrival onsite: 2023/12/07
• System deployed onsite: 2024/02/02
• Go live: 2024/2/26
• Final acceptance: 2024/7/31