SATO’s RFID Pallet Tracking System Improves Sterilisation of Medical Products Reference Industries: Healthcare, Medical Products

02/09/24 SATO’s RFID Pallet Tracking System Improves Sterilisation of Medical Products Reference Industries: Healthcare, Medical Products

Background

In today’s regulatory landscape, companies across various industries, particularly in the healthcare and medical sectors, are increasingly required to adhere to rigorous sterilisation 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 sterilisation procedures to meet stringent regulatory requirements and maintain the highest standards in 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 labour 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 utilisation of RFID technology at the sterilisation 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 sterilisation 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, 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