Pharmaceutical and life sciences businesses face stringent requirements around batch control, traceability and compliance, which cannot be an afterthought when scaling warehouse operations and supporting pharma growth.
Ryan Gibbs and Grant Smith will examine these supply chain considerations in an upcoming webinar, “New Build, 3PL, AGV, AMR or AutoStore Robotics? Choosing the Right Supply Chain Strategy for Pharma Growth,” taking place on Thursday, September 24, 2026, at 8:30 a.m.
The session will compare four approaches to warehouse growth: building a new facility, outsourcing to a third-party logistics (3PL) provider, deploying automated guided vehicles (AGVs) or autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), and implementing AutoStore automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS). The discussion will cover the cost, timelines and risks associated with these options, as well as pharma-specific challenges such as batch control and traceability, along with considerations for nutraceutical businesses.
The webinar will feature the experience of Healthcare by Douglas, which was forecast to double within five years and evaluated these four options before selecting AutoStore ASRS. The business is now home to New Zealand’s first AutoStore ASRS site and was the winner of 2026 Technology Project of the Year at the PMI New Zealand Awards. Reported results include an increase in picking rates from 50 to 200 picks per hour, a 68% increase in throughput, 99.9% order accuracy, approximately 3,000 order lines processed per day, and 30% more storage capacity in just 10% of the space.
What You’ll Learn
- How to weigh new build, 3PL, and robotics against automation.
- How to handle pharma and nutraceutical-specific challenges like batch control in an automated warehouse.
- How Douglas balanced growth and space constraints without disrupting operations.
The live session will be followed by a Q&A. Participants who register but are unable to attend the live webinar will receive a recording of the session.
Register here to attend the webinar.
