BY PETER BRADLEY, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
PICKING AND PACKING
materialhandlingupdate
Maintaining service
during rapid growth
Medical supply
company improves
efficiency with an
automated system.
PHOTO COURTES Y OF TG W
AESCULAP IS NOT A NAME THAT’S LIKELY TO BE FAMILIAR TO LOGISTICS
professionals. But for surgeons around the world, it is one that is very well known.
The company, based in Tuttlingen, Germany, supplies surgeons with a wide variety
of surgical instruments and surgical power systems, with a focus on the fields of general, neuro, spinal, and orthopedic surgery. Its products include instruments for open
and minimally invasive surgeries; implants for orthopedics, neurosurgery, and spinal
surgery; surgical sutures; sterile containers; and products for the cardiology sector,
the company says.
Considering just how critical those supplies can be, ensuring that surgeons have the
right product at the right time in the right condition is a business imperative for
Aesculap.
A division of the privately held German firm B. Braun Melsungen AG, the company has grown rapidly in recent years, and that growth was putting stress on operations
at its logistics center in Tuttlingen. By 2006, the facility was approaching its operational limits, the company said in response to written questions from DC VELOCITY.
The lack of capacity and expectation of continued growth led management to
