“The A3000 is important for our branding”
The pharmacist Jacob Hjelme relies on Apostore solutions in his three pharmacies
The pharmacy in the Naestved shopping centre is very busy every day. But no customer needs to wait long. Even though the pharmacy has more than 500 customer contacts per day, every customer is served within one minute. The reason for this efficiency is the APOSTORE A3000 storage and retrieval machine, which has been installed in 2016. The pharmacist and owner Jacob Hjelme considers the machine to be an important part of his pharmacy's branding.
The pharmacy in the Naestved shopping centre is very busy every day. But no customer needs to wait long. Even though the pharmacy has more than 500 customer contacts per day, every customer is served within one minute. The reason for this efficiency is the APOSTORE A3000 storage and retrieval machine, which has been installed in 2016. The pharmacist and owner Jacob Hjelme considers the machine to be an important part of his pharmacy's branding.
“The A3000 has significantly shortened the time it takes per customer. Our customers now receive their medication faster. This is a considerable advantage, because nobody wants to stand in a queue when being ill. This machine also brings significant time savings for all other customers”, says Jacob Hjelme. Hjelme is convinced that his customers know that they owe these improvements to the machine. Because they can see it for themselves. If an employee enters an order, the A3000 immediately ejects the product within seconds.
The employees at the Naestved pharmacy no longer spend time taking stock, putting products on shelves, sorting according to expiry dates or other monotonous tasks. Instead, they can dedicate more time to advising customers on medical and health issues.
The pharmacy in Naestved is one of three that Jacob Hjelme runs. He equipped all of them with APOSTORE storage and retrieval systems. Altogether, the machines provide more flexibility. For example, it also allows employees to perform all their daily tasks. The employees can easily switch between the different departments if necessary.
These improvements, Hjelme observes, have led to a considerable increase in job satisfaction. He is pleased to be able to devote more time to his entrepreneurial responsibilities in order to manage and develop his business strategically.
Stock management
On the subject of additional benefits of the A3000, Jacob Hjelme points out the improvements that the machine brings to daily back-office operations. When products are moved into stock, employees only need to scan the item with the built-in iScan system and place it on the machine's conveyor belt. The intelligent conveyor system that Apostore provides with the A3000 does the rest.
Chaos Principle
For humans, storage may look a bit chaotic, but the A3000 has everything under control. Specially developed algorithms drive the machine and ensure it sorts the products according to top sellers, expiration date or other specifications. The A3000 also provides a precise overview of the entire stock at all times.
Each product is scanned and photographed in the storage and retrieval machine to check whether the data on the packaging matches the data in the database. Should this not be the case, the A3000 will reject the article so that staff can inspect the relevant product. This feature raises the safety of dispensing medication to a whole new level.
“The A3000 provides an extremely high level of safety in handling pharmaceuticals. We always know what we have in stock”, says Jacob Hjelme. Because of the integrated interface, the machine can even communicate with the pharmacy's wholesaler and automatically place new orders. “As a result, we always have sufficient stock for all product categories”, explains Hjelme.