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Supply Division was built on a site near
Copenhagen’s port with the goal of creating more efficient procurement and
distribution operations.
UNICEF itself was not directly involved
in the construction of its new building,
Schaefer Systems, an
international designer,
integrator, and manufacturer of warehouse
systems, to design an
automated warehouse
system that would meet
UNICEF’s needs.
The result is a building that is now the
world’s largest and
most technologically
advanced facility for
humanitarian work.
The Schaefer Systems design incorporates automated storage and retrieval
systems (AS/RS), miniloads, goods-to-person picking stations, electric rail shuttle cars, conveyors, and a new warehouse
management system. In its first year
alone, the system allowed for the precise
handling of $115 million worth of products, while boosting both throughput
and performance.
RELIEF READY TO GO
Currently, a core staff of 34 handles
about 800 stock-keeping units (SKUs).
These range greatly in size and purpose,
from pencils and erasers to tents and tarpaulins. More than half of the products
handled at the facility are medicines.
One of the operation’s chief tasks is to
build kits for various UNICEF outreach
programs. The kits bring together items
that would commonly be used togeth-
er, such as medical equipment or edu-
cational supplies. Kitting makes them
easier to ship and to clear customs. The
day I visited the site, staffers were assem-
bling kits of basic pharmaceuticals for
UNICEF’s health centers in Zimbabwe.
The kits are stored at the facility until
needed either for ongoing programs,
like those in Zimbabwe, or for disaster
response initiatives.
“We tailor-make the kits and try to
anticipate what the health needs will
be, but it is not easy, as we never know
when the next cholera outbreak will
occur,” says Kyungnan Park, chief of
the Logistics Centre
Supply Division. She
hails from South Korea
and is one of the many
international workers here. In all, people
from some 70 different
countries work at the
Supply Division, and
about 20 nationalities
are represented on the
warehouse floor.
A typical medical kit
might include medicines, medical instruments and utensils,
Another of UNICEF’s kits addresses
educational needs. Called School-in-a-Box, it contains paper, pencils, crayons,
exercise books, and other supplies for a
teacher and 40 students to cover three
months. And since attending school constitutes only a portion of a child’s day
in a relief camp or developing area, the
agency also provides recreation kits containing items such as basketballs, soccer
balls, and sports nets. While the facility
can reach any part of the globe, over 60
percent of the developmental initiatives
that Copenhagen supports are programs
in sub-Saharan Africa.
HOPE ON THE MOVE
Products distributed by the facility arrive
from suppliers all over the world. Most
of these come in containers that are
unloaded from cargo ships at the nearby port. Pharmaceuticals, however, are
often delivered by air and then trucked
to the site.
