Oulu University Hospital – Planning of the support service centre

Background

The Oulu University Hospital has initiated a broad renovation and renewal programme which targets to reform the whole hospital campus to meet today’s requirements. As a part of the reform, the support services were planned to be concentrated in the specified area on the campus. The goal was to achieve synergy benefits within the support services and to separate cargo and patient traffic to separate routes.

Assignment and results

The assignment was to create the logistics plan for the support service centre. Support service centre included central warehouse, hospital pharmacy, food distribution centre and technical department. EP-Logistics estimated space requirements together with the individual support services. The functionality and material flows of operations were also planned. The planned facilities and the truck yard was plotted at hospital property and transportation routes were planned from the new centre to hospital departments. Additionally, EP-logistics calculated the feasibility of automated transport robots, vacuum conveyor tubes for waste and centralised washing unit for hospital beds.

Benefits

  • The process descriptions for the most significant logistical needs of different support services were prepared
  • The space needs, material flows, and operations of support services were planned
  • The facilities were outlined to the plot taking in to account connections to the road network and the logistics corridors of the hospital
  • The feasibility of the automated systems was confirmed with calculations