Gibotech A/S
Hollufgaardsvej 31
DK-5260 Odense S, Denmark
www.gibotech.dk
Area of business:
Development, implementation
and maintenance of industry
solutions, automation,
robotics and CNC systems
T
he surgical teams at this Copen-
hagen hospital are under pressure.
With more than sixty operations
to carry out every day, everything
must run smoothly. Precision and timing
are crucial. This is, of course, no problem
provided you can find the correct surgi-
cal instrument within seconds. However,
this is something that can’t be taken for
granted, as every basket of instruments
requires costly sterile warehousing, which
until now involved a significant amount
of effort on the part of hospital personnel.
The hospital’s IT specialists recognised
that getting the surgical instruments
ready for the operating theatre involved
a great deal of time and money – not to
mention the fact that the packages some-
times contained incorrect instruments.
This required considerable effort to get
things right.
Internationally unique
Although automated warehouse manage-
ment systems are common in industry,
a system for cleaning and picking surgical
instruments at a hospital was a minor
sensation. “But the system functioned
faultlessly right from the very first day,”
reports Lars Vinge, production manager
for Danish automation specialist Gibo-
tech. In just ten days during normal
operation, Gibotech installed the system,
which is unique and has potential as a
pilot project for the field of healthcare,
in the cramped basement rooms of a new
building at the hospital.
Freeing up resources
The system eliminates the need for
hospital personnel to manually handle
heavy baskets of surgical instruments
for order picking, cleaning, sterilising,
storage and withdrawal for scheduled
operations. As a result, it saves labour
costs amounting to ten man-years and
frees up resources which the hospital is
able to put to good use elsewhere. The
fully automated sterile warehouse has
1,900
storage locations and 1,800 baskets,
which are all equipped with RFID labels.
The system handles up to 100 transactions
a day. Each basket has a processing time
of five to ten minutes.
Precision handling
The processes of the storage system were
kept as simple as possible to ensure
that investment and maintenance costs
remain manageable. Personnel manually
load wire baskets with surgical instru-
ments, which are cleaned in sterile wash-
ing machines. Staff then line the baskets
with hygienic crepe paper, which is not
damaged during the sterilisation process
in the autoclaves. During the next step,
the instruments are assembled into
operation-specific instrument packages,
depending on requirements for opera-
tions scheduled for the next day. The wire
baskets are then consigned to the storage
system, where they can be located with
markers such as bar codes, RFID and
data sheets. Automatic handling systems
use these markers to help employees
find the storage locations the next day.
Electric axes EGC are at the heart of
this handling system. They reliably and
accurately distribute the baskets to the
rack system’s 1,900 storage locations.
Wherever the surgical instruments might
come into close proximity with system
components, Clean Design pneumatic
components from the CRDSNU range are
used, which are certified in accordance
with Cleanroom Class 8. Valve terminals
CPX/MPA are installed in a decentralised
fashion and connected to Rockwell
controllers via Ethernet/IP.
Absolute peak value
The very pure and dry atmosphere within
the system is a challenge for all of the
drives. “But neither the pneumatic nor
the electric drives from Festo had any
problems in this respect,” stresses project
manager Vinge. On the contrary, planned
system availability was 97%. “At the
moment we’re even reaching a peak
value of 98.5%,” reports Vinge, who
hopes to inspire other hospitals around
the world with this reference system.
After all, the system is capable of
delivering measurable long-term
cost savings in healthcare.
www.festo.com/catalog/egc
www.festo.com/catalog/crdsnu
www.festo.com/catalog/cpx
The heart of the handling system:
Highly precise
and reliable electric axes EGC (top and top right).
1,900
storage locations:
Enough capacity
for up to 100 operations a day.
2.2012
trends in automation
Synergies
36
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37