The Customer
Over the last years, the pharmaceutical sector has seen very successful growth rates around the globe. The industry is booming. One of the technologically leading companies in Belgium is Livlina. Founded in 1993, more than 200 employees specialize in the storage, picking, packaging and regional distribution of medicines, which it delivers to the customer within 24 hours.
In order to achieve this logistical masterpiece on a daily basis, Livlina opened a new, fully automated warehouse in Tessenderlo, Belgium, at the end of 2021. The former 'Pharma Distri Center' requires extensive monitoring and control of the temperatures in the different climate zones.
The project
The Tessenderlo warehouse covers a space of 35,000 square meters. The 36-meter-high building offers 55,000 pallet spaces and is fully automated. The two temperature zones, one cooled and another with a temperature between 15 and 25 degrees centigrade, must be closely monitored. Livlina chose to cooperate with Testo and installed a testo Saveris 1 monitoring system for that task.
“At Livlina we strongly believe in a high-tech approach” says Karel Van Besien, Director of Quality at Livlina. “For example, our largest warehouse in Sint-Niklaas is 20 years old, but because it was so progressive at the time, it still feels very modern today. When we started looking for a way to check the temperature for our new distribution center in Tessenderlo, we wanted an accurate and fully automated system with extensive data logging. In the pharmaceutical sector, traceability is particularly important, sometimes literally of vital importance, and if there is no data on, for example, the temperature during the entire chain, products may have to be destroyed. That could mean a financial hangover.”
The solution
The choice fell on the testo Saveris Pharma solution, a system that consists of data loggers and – more importantly - a software platform that measures, registers and, if necessary, reports deviating parameters. “The data loggers are installed throughout the warehouse and divided into different groups with their own tolerances and threshold values that must be respected. Alarms will warn us in a timely manner when this is not the case. The data loggers work autonomously, so that they continue to record data even if the power goes out. This allows us to ensure that the integrity of the products is guaranteed throughout the entire chain.”
The system installed at Livlina is also 21 CFR Part 11 compliant, an important prerequisite in the pharmaceutical sector. This ensures that reporting can be done in a certified manner without time-consuming paperwork.
“It is the first time that Livlina collaborates with Testo. Despite the corona crisis, the installation went perfectly, and we are very satisfied with the first results”, concludes Van Besien.