Pharmacy Storage
As the workload increases for Pharmacists and the pressure to improve customer care whilst maintaining margins increases daily, it is important for the whole of the operation to be efficient, from deliveries and storage in the pharmacy to the customer walking out of the door, happy with the service they have received.
In the 1970’s Toyota, the Japanese car manufacturer, introduced “Lean Manufacturing” to extract the waste from the processes of producing cars and whilst this may, at first, appear to be highly irrelevant there are a lot of lessons to be learnt in all walks of commercial life including Pharmacies. Waste to Toyota was not just material waste, it included over production of parts, time wasted between stages of operations, time spent waiting between stages and the movement of personnel whilst completing the operations.
In a Pharmacy it is important that the storage and control of stock forms the cornerstone of a good operation. It’s not adding value to the Pharmacists service if the retail side is aesthetically pleasing but staff can’t find stock quickly. A lot of what Toyota preached and what can be usefully copied in the Pharmacy is “common sense” but unfortunately “common sense “ isn’t always common.
Most Pharmacists can remember or still experience those “toy cupboard” storage areas, under the stairs, in a back room or crammed under a work surface somewhere.
New Pharmacy storage systems such as Pharmashelve are an invaluable aid to stock storage. Pharmashelve’s multi drawer system allows more products to be stored in a smaller area, which also leads to improved stock control. The acrylic drawer dividers in each drawer help staff find individual items quickly reducing wasted time and the overall close proximity of the range of stock means that staff have reduced walking distances resulting in reduced fatigue at the end of the day. Added to that, as Pharmacists can see stock levels immediately a lower amount of inventory is needed overall.
Pharmashelve is a flexible storage system and can be fitted into the smallest of dispensaries, either along a wall or back to back as an island unit. Designed with Pharmacists the Pharmashelve storage system is easy to install and requires only a basic knowledge of simple DIY skills to have the system up and running in no time. Pharmashelve is a pharmacy storage system that has been designed to be hygienic and easy to clean with simple lines and fewer dust traps ensuring practical usage as well as being attractive on the eye.