CVS is America's largest retail pharmacy, operating more than 5,400 retail and specialty pharmacy stores in 36 states and the District of Columbia. With more than 40 years of dynamic growth in the retail pharmacy industry, CVS is committed to being the easiest pharmacy retailer for customers to use. CVS has created innovative approaches to serve the healthcare needs of all customers through its CVS/pharmacy stores; its online pharmacy, CVS.com; and its pharmacy benefit management and specialty pharmacy subsidiary, PharmaCare. The Somerset distribution center is a 354,000 square foot facility servicing more than 500 stores weekly in a five state area.

A new tote-sorting and -labeling system used in a cross-docking operation at the DC is saving $100,000 annually in reduced trucking costs alone as well as achieving major labor savings for the drug store chain. "We came up with the concept in early 2003 to reduce the labor needed to sort and stage totes coming from a cross-dock facility and to reduce transportation costs from our cross-dock facility by eliminating palletized loads and going to floor loading," says CVS director Mark Nicastro. "We put a design together and budgeted the project for 2004. Once the project was approved, we purchased equipment in late July and installed it in November."

Read how a major pharmaceutical company installed 70 new and/or upgraded LABELING SYSTEMS from Labeling Systems, Inc. for corrugated cases in seven manufacturing plants at www.packagingdigest.com/info/pharmaceutical

The automated system, which incorporates a Series 20 print-and-apply labeling system from Labeling Systems, Inc. (www.labelingsystems.com) that is equipped with a SATO America, Inc. (www.satoamerica.com) Model 8459Se print engine, replaces a manual system. LSI recommended SuperUser Solutions, Inc. (www.su-solutions.com) as the systems integrator for the project, and they provided a turnkey design, as well as installed and started up the entire operation.

Somerset was receiving two transfer trucks of product per night from another CVS DC in Indianapolis for cross docking to local delivery trucks. Most of the products were in totes that were stacked on pallets with the trucks loaded one pallet high. Somerset would sort the totes for delivery to the stores in its region.

When the trucks reached Somerset, a lift truck would remove the pallets and place them on a mezzanine in the plant. Workers would then manually remove the totes from the pallet and place them on a conveyor. Each tote coming from Indianapolis has a bar-coded label on its top telling what retail store in the Somerset region it is supposed to be delivered to, and workers would scan the bar code and manually write the wave number on each tote. Workers would then remove the totes from the conveyor in accord with the wave number written on top.

A wave is an accumulation of products for a group of stores that will be delivered from the same truck. Somerset handles products for eight to 11 stores in each wave, and assembles 20 to 30 waves per day.

With its new receiving system, the Indianapolis plant has eliminated the pallets, and now loads totes from floor-to-ceiling in the trucks. "We've increased the average loading per truck from 1,319 totes to 1,621, which eliminates one to two truck loads per week," says Nicastro.

When the truck gets to Somerset, totes are unloaded and placed onto a flexible conveyor that carries them to an elevator. The elevator lifts them up to the mezzanine and transfers them onto a conveyor that carries them underneath a Mini-X automatic scanner from Accu-Sort Systems, Inc. (www.accusort.com) followed by the print-and-apply labeling system. The conveyors and elevator were supplied by TKF, Inc. (www.tkf.com).

When a tote reaches the scanner, which is mounted over the conveyor on a stand, a sensor triggers the unit to begin scanning the bar code on the top of the tote. An encoder tells the scanner to stop reading when the tote moves from beneath the scanner. The scanner is programmed to recognize only the correct symbology printed on the label applied in Indianapolis, so even if other printed material is present, the scanner will ignore it and only pick up the information from the correct label. This data is transmitted to a PC, mounted beside the line, which refers to a table in its memory to determine what wave that tote is to be placed in, and it transmits that information to the labeling system, so it can apply a label with the proper wave number.

If there is a problem with a reading, for example, if a label is illegible, or if the same tote number apperars on more than one tote, the computer will tell the label printer to print an error message expaining what error occurred, and it diverts that tote onto a side conveyor after the labeler. If three totes are rejected consecutively, the computer will shut down the system and sound an alarm. The PC also generates reports that show the total number of totes proceesed, the number to each store and the number of totes rejected with the reasons for the rejections.

A sensor detects the tote as it enters the labeler and initiates the intermittent labeling sequence. Blank, white, pressure-sensitive labels are mounted on a vertical roll and are pulled by the SATO print engine's stepper-motor drive past the printhead, which prints the wave number that it has received from the PC. The label is then peeled from the paper backing and dispensed onto the tamp pad, which holds the label in place using a venturi vacuum source. The pneumatic cylinder holding the tamp pad then extends to apply the label.

Both Labeling Systems and SuperUser Solutions did an excellent job for us. LSI provided us with an exceptional piece of equipment that has made the process easy and fast. SuperUser's attention to detail was superb, and they provided us with the base knowledge needed to operate and troubleshoot the system.

The new Series 20 labeler at Somerset is equipped with LSI's Smart Tamp system in which the cylinder will extend until it reaches the surface to which the label is to be affixed, rather than for a set distance. Thus, the unit will automatically label different height totes without requiring manual intervention.

The unwind roll has a spring-loaded dancer/brake arm to provide constant unwind tension that maintains consistent print registration and minimizes print-engine stepper-motor inertial loading. After the label is dispensed, the paper backing is collected on a powered rewind roll coupled with a mechanical slip clutch. Totes leaving the labeler travel on the discharge conveyor past stations where workers remove them in accord with the numbers on the labels.

"Both Labeling Systems and SuperUser Solutions did an excellent job for us," says Nicastro. "LSI provided us with an exceptional piece of equipment that has made the process easy and fast. SuperUser's attention to detail was superb, and they provided us withthe base knowledge needed to operate and troubleshoot the system."

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