A Q&A with Mike Futch, CEO of Tompkins Robotics. Meet him at NACDS Total Store Expo in Booth 2255 on August 15-17 to discuss central fill automation strategies.
As cost, accuracy and operational effectiveness become ever more important, pharmaceutical fulfillment leaders are rethinking how central fill operations should be designed. We sat down with Futch to discuss the trends shaping pharmacy automation.
A: Traditional central fill operations were typically built around fixed conveyor systems, sequential workflows, and inflexible systems. These are difficult and expensive to expand or reconfigure as volumes grow or fulfillment strategies evolve. Instead of simply adding capacity, businesses often have to redesign their infrastructure.
The solution to this is to automate using robotic systems such as Tompkins Robotics tSort. We provide automated robotic transport and sortation systems that replace the conveyors used to move individual scripts throughout the operation and sort the outbound patient orders to stores.
A: We encourage leaders to look at flexibility, scalability, infrastructure required, deployment time, maintenance requirements, and total cost of ownership. Ask yourself: How easily can this system adapt to business changes? The automation you install today should still support your operation years from now. Another key item is the cost of delivery to patients. Your automation should drive reductions in manual labor, operating, facility, and ongoing costs.
A: Modular robotic systems, like Tompkins Robotics tSort, remove much of the fixed infrastructure that limits traditional facilities. Autonomous robots transport and sort scripts and orders dynamically, allowing multiple workflows to operate in parallel instead of a single sequential path. This reduces bottlenecks while making it easier to expand capacity or reconfigure operations without major infrastructure additions, costs, or downtime.
A: We move individual scripts from automated and manual filling to downstream automated bagging and order consolidation replacing conveyors. We also provide order consolidation using our tSort3D system. And finally, we sort outbound patient orders to thousands of stores in a typical facility.
A: Accuracy and consistency are critical in pharmaceutical fulfillment. Reducing manual touches helps minimize opportunities for error, while automation provides greater visibility into where orders are throughout the fulfillment process. Faster deployment is another benefit that often gets overlooked—getting a system operational sooner means organizations begin realizing value much earlier.
A: Design for change. Patient expectations, prescription volumes, and fulfillment models will continue to evolve. The most successful operations won't necessarily be the ones with the biggest systems—they'll be the ones with automation that can adapt quickly. Investing in flexible, scalable technology today positions your operation to respond to whatever tomorrow brings.