The Herlev Hospital gets Full Automatic Goods Reception with the help from Q-System

The nurses will soon be able to spend more time on the patients – thanks to cutting-edge automation

Q-System has installed a fully automated transport system at the Herlev Hospital, which becomes the hospital in the world that is furthest when we speak automation. In cooperation with EK Automation, we have helped to develop the automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to deliver the goods around the hospital. Soon the hospital staff can order linen and medicine on tablets and get them delivered by small self-propelled robots – or in professional terms: AGVs.

The AGVs will be able to navigate around the hospital, take the elevator, deliver and pick-up containers, and drive to their loading dock when running out of battery. This will free the nursing staff to focus more on patients. We have been developing AGV’s for many years, and at the hi industry fair in September 2015, we introduced our new AGV; the Q Lean Connect.

Transport system

Q-System are leaving an even bigger fingerprint on this project. Q-System are delivering all the mechanics to the transport system, which aforementioned goods will be delivered to before the small AGV’s pick them up. The transport system consists of 22 units of 13 meters long modular conveyors, several lifts for transporting the goods between floors, full automatic transfer carts, and much more.

 

The system works like this: the trucks unload on to the in-conveyors the linen trolleys, which contain anything from medicine to laundry. The trolleys are then scanned via a bar-code so the system knows where each trolley needs to go. The trolleys are transported to the lifts that bring them a level down, where two full automatic transfer carts are ready to transport them to one of the 22 modular conveyors. The trolleys are the transported to the AGV’s that delivers them to their final destination.

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The system works in reverse as well. So instead of delivering a trolley, it will pick up a trolley with e.g. dirty laundry that needs to go to the laundry. This trolley will be transported to the trucks via the transport system.

”Our key competence is units handling – also when it gets difficult. We are talking about horizontal transportation on several levels and then we have vertical transportation, to get everything up and down between the different levels. There are many different subjects and trolleys of very different nature and that gives us a few challenges, but this is where our strong competencies kick in.” Niels-Erik Lundvig, CEO of Q-System explains.