Recently, Centennial Linde and Luan Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Luan Pharmaceutical), the world's largest paracetamol manufacturer, have joined forces to jointly protect people with a more efficient, cleaner, smarter and safer drug supply chain system. healthy.

Building a factory of the future in the field of medicine

The world's paracetamol is in China, and China's paracetamol is in Lu'an. Relying on the belief of improving health with science and technology, Luan Pharmaceutical has always been committed to the production and manufacture of various antipyretic and analgesic drugs. . In 2021, in order to build a "Future Factory" in the pharmaceutical field and provide global customers with a faster and more accurate order delivery experience, Luan Pharmaceutical decided to comprehensively upgrade its factory logistics.

As early as 20 years ago, Linde and Luan Pharmaceutical jointly created and moved forward. With the fruitful achievements in the field of handling robots over the years, Linde once again reached a strategic cooperation with Luan Pharmaceutical to help Luan's intelligent transformation.

Smart handling speeds up health

Due to the particularity of the pharmaceutical industry, the requirements for pharmaceutical production lines are extremely stringent. It is not only necessary to achieve absolute control of the temperature and humidity of each production workshop, but also to meet the requirements of the "Quality Management Practice for Pharmaceutical Production" aseptic and dust-free requirements in the transportation, handling and other links; in the raw material warehouse, logistics equipment is required to The raw materials are stored in different categories, and according to the order requirements of the production workshop, the raw materials are accurately delivered to the target workshop. When the sales season is high, logistics equipment is also required to complete the order delivery operation with higher turnover efficiency, accuracy and flexibility.

Based on the high requirements for the cleanliness of the production environment in the pharmaceutical industry, the variety of raw materials and products, and the high operating efficiency, Linde designed a set of high-flow, high-intelligence, high-cleanness, and high-safety equipment for Luan Pharmaceutical with nearly 1,000 cargo spaces. The intelligent production line material distribution system meets the construction needs of Luan Pharmaceutical, and lays a solid foundation for further business expansion in the later stage.

Creative design to create safe and clean drug handling

In response to the production needs of the Lu'an production line, Linde uses highly flexible and intelligent latent handling robots to be responsible for the feeding of the production line. In order to ensure that the materials are not affected by temperature, humidity and pollution during the handling process, Linde has set up two sets of latent handling robots in the clean area and the non-clean area of the production line. Tasks; robots in non-clean areas are responsible for handling tasks such as raw material delivery and finished product transportation, which are independent of each other.

Linde's latent handling robot has built-in QR code camera and inertial navigation technology, which can identify the path autonomously, run the whole process without pollution, and fully meet the requirements of no pollution source during the handling process. Combined with the intelligent warehouse management system WMS control of Linde's independent intellectual property rights, the Linde latent handling robots in the clean area and the non-clean area operate independently throughout the whole process without interfering with each other. At the same time, the laser scanner can also sense obstacles and give early warning, fully protect the safety of people and goods, and solve the problem of customers' manual pallet trucks damaging stainless steel walls in the past.

"Linde's automated logistics equipment is very simple and intelligent to operate. As long as you click on the PAD, the whole set of equipment can accurately complete the operation, which greatly reduces our work intensity." - Wang, Equipment Engineer, Luan Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. gentlemen

The seamless connection of multiple intelligent devices enables the efficient operation of the drug supply chain

In the process of finished product warehousing and order warehousing, Linde uses a new model of collaborative operation of various types of intelligent handling robots to meet the requirements for high operating efficiency and high accuracy of forklifts during peak periods.

In the finished product warehouse, Linde pallet stacking and handling robots and Linde latent handling robots are seamlessly connected on the handover platform to quickly and accurately complete the loading and unloading of finished products, and Linde shuttles quickly transfer the goods to delivery. It completes the outbound connection with the Linde pallet stacking and handling robot, and runs automatically throughout the whole process without manual supervision.

Combining the advantages of Linde's product system, Linde's pallet stacking and handling robot can reach a forward travel speed of up to 2m/s. At the same time, when placing goods, the travel/steering/lifting actions can be performed synchronously, reducing waiting time and greatly improving operating efficiency. The safety in line with the PLD safety level improves the handling safety in terms of speed control, braking, emergency stop, etc. Through the introduction of Linde's automated logistics system, Lu'an Pharmaceutical Factory has successfully increased the operating efficiency to 40% and the order delivery accuracy rate to 99.99%.

Create a new future of medicine

Linde's one-stop logistics automation solution with high intelligence, high efficiency, high safety and high cleanliness not only solves the current urgent need for Luan Pharmaceutical again, but also the Linde robot that operates efficiently around the clock, but also helps Luan become a pharmaceutical industry. The "factory of the future" has a solid foundation for automated logistics. Looking forward to the future, Linde will continue to work with Luan Pharmaceutical to create a new future for the pharmaceutical industry with a more efficient automated logistics model for the pharmaceutical industry.

"Linde has provided strong support for the implementation of Lu'an's technical transformation project from pre-sales consulting services, to rapid deployment during project implementation, to maintenance and after-sales service. It also promoted our talent development. The structural upgrade has allowed us to see the results of cost reduction and efficiency increase, helping us focus on our main business, speed up transformation and upgrading, and achieve greater development.Editor / Zhao E