In today’s regulatory landscape, companies across various industries, particularly in the healthcare and medical sectors, are increasingly required to adhere to rigorous sterilization processes to ensure the safety and quality of their products. This entails precise tracking and monitoring of products, such as medical devices or instruments, as they undergo sterilization procedures to meet stringent regulatory requirements and maintain the highest standards of product safety and efficacy.

Business Challenge

The business challenge faced by the customer, a global leader in medical technology dedicated to ensuring patient and healthcare worker safety, as well as facilitating medical research and clinical laboratory operations, revolves around the cumbersome process of manually tracking pallets in their warehouse. This manual tracking method is not only time-consuming but also laborious and tedious for the staff involved. The extensive labor required for this task results in high manpower costs for the company. Moreover, manual processes are prone to human errors, which can have serious implications in the context of medical instruments where accuracy is paramount. Additionally, the absence of real-time visibility and status updates compounds the inefficiencies in the warehouse management system.

Solution

SATO provided an advanced solution to address the customer’s challenges. The implementation involved the integration of RFID tags on pallets, as well as the utilization of RFID technology at the sterilization chamber and gantry points in the warehouse. This comprehensive approach enabled the real-time monitoring of work-in-processes, ensuring accurate zone location tracking of the pallets, including their status concerning sterilization completion. The system seamlessly tracks and updates the location of pallets as they pass through the marked gantries, enabling efficient movement between different zones within the facility and ultimately enhancing process control and visibility.

(An RFID gantry is a structure equipped with RFID technology that is used to track and manage objects, items, or assets as they pass through a designated point in a facility or along a specific path. RFID gantries are often composed of RFID readers and antennas that can communicate with RFID tags attached to objects or pallets. When an object with an RFID tag moves through the gantry, the RFID system reads the tag's information, allowing for real-time tracking, data collection, and process monitoring).

Results

• Increased productivity and efficiency of the sterilization process

• Regulatory compliant with traceability and accuracy of medical products

• Decreased manpower costs