SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
strategicinsight
The pharma distributor
has made multiple
upgrades to its South
Smith Drug
Carolina DC in the past
seven years to maintain
its competitive edge.
reformulates
And it’s not done yet.
IN THE HIGHLY COMPETITIVE WORLD OF PHARMACEUTICAL DISTRIBUTION,
regional players must find a way to differentiate themselves if they hope to compete with the big
national firms. Such is the case with Smith Drug. The Spartanburg, S.C.-based distributor operates in the Southeast, serving 1,200 independent pharmacies, regional hospitals, and long-term
care facilities. To separate itself from the pack, the company has chosen to play the service card,
filling orders with speed and accuracy that’s second to none.
“Our primary focus is customer service. We have to be better than others to compete,” explains
Isaac Rogers, the company’s vice president of operations.
For that reason, Smith Drug hasn’t been shy about introducing process improvements aimed
at helping the company maintain its competitive edge. In fact, operations at its 240,000-square-
foot Spartanburg DC have undergone several major overhauls in the past seven years—all
designed to increase accuracy and turn customer orders faster.
PHASE ONE
The first of those projects took place in 2004, when the company retooled the facility’s picking
area to convert it over from a pick-and-pass setup to a zone-bypass design. The goal in this case
was to speed up the order fulfillment process. “With pick-and-pass, you’re only as fast as your
slowest picker,” says Rogers.
One drawback of the pick-and-pass workflow was that it required order totes to be routed
through all of the zones whether items were needed from those areas or not. With the revamped
system, which was designed and implemented by SSI Schaefer, an order can bypass a zone if no
stock-keeping units (SKUs) from that section are required. And if work is backed up in a zone,
