Logistics planning for the new USB hospital logistics centre

The new logis­tics and ser­vice cen­tre of the Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal Basel (USB) is being built on the Ster­nen­feld site in Birs­felden (“BIRS project”). An Auto­Store sys­tem will ensure that the hos­pi­tal is sup­plied with con­sum­ables. SOLTIC was involved in the plan­ning of the intral­o­gis­tics sys­tems and BIM mod­el­ling.

Togeth­er with the USB engi­neer­ing team, we designed the logis­tics equip­ment and process­es. The range of logis­tics equip­ment includes

• a man­u­al pal­let rack­ing ware­house with approx. 3,600 pal­let spaces includ­ing haz­ardous mate­ri­als stor­age areas
• an auto­mat­ed Auto­Store small parts ware­house with 15,000 bin stor­age loca­tions

Thanks to the space-sav­ing stack­ing and auto­mat­ic pro­vi­sion of the stor­age con­tain­ers, the USB achieves a high stor­age den­si­ty as well as more effi­cient and ergonom­ic pick­ing. In future, the sys­tem can be fur­ther scaled and expand­ed as per­for­mance require­ments increase.

Fur­ther impres­sions of the project can be seen in the video from the Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal Basel, Depart­ment of Engi­neer­ing.

How does an AutoStore system work?

An Auto­Store is an auto­mat­ed stor­age and pick­ing sys­tem that is pri­mar­i­ly used in inter­nal logis­tics. It is based on a cubic stor­age sys­tem in which goods in bins are stacked on top of each oth­er in a grid. Robots on the sur­face of the grid pick the bins and take them to work sta­tions, known as “ports”. There, employ­ees pick the goods or check or process them.