From Healing Hands to Seamless Hubs: How LeeSar Scaled Healthcare Supply with Smart Automation

The Client

Imagine a vital artery in the healthcare system – that’s LeeSar. Starting in 1998 as a strategic alliance between two Florida hospital systems, LeeSar’s mission was clear: drive down costs for essential healthcare supplies through smart, centralized purchasing and distribution. What began with basic medical items quickly expanded to encompass complex needs like nuclear and compounding pharmacies and surgical instrument sterilization. Fast forward, and LeeSar now serves four major hospital systems across seven campuses, supporting the critical work of nearly 500 employees. Their success story is one of growth, but rapid growth often brings operational growing pains.

The Challenge

LeeSar’s expansion was a testament to their value, but it also pushed their existing distribution center to its limits. More hospital campuses meant exponentially higher volumes and a wider variety of products (SKUs) flowing through their facility. Their original setup, while functional for earlier stages, relied heavily on manual processes, particularly in picking operations.

The Strained Infrastructure of Success

As order lines increased, the time it took to pick them ballooned. What once took a standard workday was stretching into 20 hours of picking just to keep up with a single day’s demand. This wasn’t just inefficient; it was a major bottleneck.

“We had to come up with A: the space to expand and B: the footprint within that space to adequately distribute that product,” said Process Excellence Manager Adam Flood. “The biggest goal for us was figuring out a way to improve our throughput and our accuracy. Year over year we continue to grow and because of that, the number of lines picks that we do or product we pick increases.”  

The Hidden Costs of Manual Handling

Beyond the slowdown, the reliance on manual lifting and carrying of totes posed ergonomic risks for employees. A growing operation shouldn’t come at the cost of worker safety and comfort. They needed a solution that could not only handle the volume but do so safely and efficiently. They understood they needed automation, but how do you weave together different pieces of equipment into one cohesive, high-performing system?

The Solution

This is where the concept of a Material Handling System Integrator becomes not just helpful, but essential. Think of a system integrator like the general contractor for your warehouse workflow, or perhaps more accurately, the architect and orchestra conductor combined. They don’t just sell you individual pieces of equipment; they look at your entire operation, understand your specific challenges and future goals, design a comprehensive blueprint, and then bring together the right technologies from various specialists to create a single, harmonious system tailored just for you.

FloStor stepped into this role for LeeSar. Instead of just selling them conveyors or racks, FloStor partnered with LeeSar to understand the totality of their needs – the volume, the product types, the facility layout, the safety concerns, and the desired throughput increase.

Designing the Seamless Flow

FloStor, working with equipment specialists like Hytrol for the conveyors, designed a multi-level pick module system. This wasn’t just about adding more shelves; it was about fundamentally re-engineering how products moved and how picking happened. The core idea was to bring the product to the picker efficiently and safely, rather than having pickers manually handle bulky totes over long distances.

Elevating Efficiency (Literally)

A key element of the design was utilizing the vertical space in LeeSar’s facility. This is where innovative solutions like the Connex spiral conveyor came into play. Instead of using valuable floor space for long, angled conveyors to move totes between floors, the spirals provided a compact, vertical lift solution.

• Efficient Vertical Transport: The 3-story spiral system efficiently moves cartons between levels with a significant elevation change in a small footprint.
• Time Savings: Chris Woodall, Hytrol’s Manager of Integrator Services, noted the following::

“By using the spirals that have a vertical lift instead of horizontal floor space to get your incline, there’s less travel. There’s less movement of the tote to get it straight up than it is to go out and come back around. So you are saving time.

“So your throughput is increased by decreased time to get the product from the first level to the second level and from the second level to the third level.”  

• Improved Work Environment: An often-overlooked benefit of the Connex spirals is their quiet operation, producing sound levels below 70 decibels, contributing to a more comfortable and safer working environment.

The Picking Module: Product to Person

Within the multi-level structure, gravity and powered roller conveyors were integrated to move totes smoothly through the picking zones. A crucial enhancement was the incorporation of flow racks.

• Continuous Picking: Flow racks were added to the picking module, allowing products to be replenished from the back while picking continues uninterrupted from the front. As Adam Flood explained:

“In a picking system, the idea is to continuously pick without interruption. Previously, we’ve run into areas that we’ve had to either pick or replenish. Bringing in the Hytrol conveyors with the addition of flow racking has allowed us to replenish without interrupting the picking process.”  

• Ergonomic Benefits: By bringing products directly to the pickers at an ergonomic height via conveyors and flow racks, the system significantly reduced the need for manual lifting and carrying, directly addressing the safety concerns.

The Power of Integration and Partnership

The success of this project wasn’t just about the equipment; it was about the partnership and the integrator’s ability to pull it all together. FloStor’s role involved understanding LeeSar’s operational DNA, designing a system that integrated multiple technologies (spirals, roller conveyors, flow racks, pick modules), managing the installation, and ensuring the entire system worked as a cohesive unit.

LeeSar had a history with their integration partner and Hytrol, which built a crucial foundation of trust. As Director of Distribution Jeff Schroeder highlighted:

“We worked with our integration partner and Hytrol on a couple of projects prior to this one, dating back about 10 years. There’s a level of trust there that this project is going have the outcome we want it to have.”

This ongoing relationship meant the integrator wasn’t just focused on the initial sale but on the long-term success and support of the system, echoing the commitment mentioned by Hytrol’s Chris Woodall:

“From the end user to the integration partner, it’s always good to see the relationships that we build. It’s in the relationships that we’re going to be there, not just at the start of the sale, but we’re going to be there at the end of the sale, any of the maintenance, any of the issues that may arise. They’re always going to know that Hytrol stood by them no matter what and the relationship’s built.”  

Measurable Results

The integrated system delivered significant, quantifiable improvements for LeeSar:

• Increased Throughput: The capacity for line picks per person per hour jumped from approximately 85 to over 100.
• Reduced Labor Time: The total time spent picking a day’s worth of orders was dramatically cut from about 20 hours down to 14.
• Enhanced Safety: Increased automation in transport and picking, combined with the reduced noise from the spirals, created a safer working environment and reduced the risk of employee injuries.
• Improved Accuracy: While not explicitly quantified in the same way as throughput, a well-designed system that reduces manual handling and brings product presentation closer to the picker inherently supports improved accuracy in order fulfillment.

By partnering with an experienced system integrator who understood their challenges and could design and implement a complex, multi-component solution, LeeSar transformed their distribution center from a bottleneck struggling with growth into a highly efficient, safer, and scalable operation ready to meet the ever-increasing demands of healthcare supply. It’s a powerful example of how smart automation, guided by expert integration, turns operational challenges into competitive advantages.

“Post-Game Review”

What were the two most difficult challenges of improving LeeSar operations?

1. Meeting Rapidly Increasing Throughput Demands Driven by Significant Growth

LeeSar experienced substantial growth, expanding from serving two hospital systems to four across seven campuses. This directly led to a year-over-year increase in the volume of product and “line picks” needed. Their existing manual-heavy operations could no longer keep up, resulting in picking processes that stretched to 20 hours per day for a single day’s work.

The core difficulty here was fundamentally increasing the speed and volume of their operations to match their business success, which manual processes inherently limited. This is a common challenge highlighted implicitly in the FloStor index articles discussing the pressures of e-commerce and the need for faster, more efficient delivery.

2. Designing and Integrating a Complex, Multi-Level Material Handling System within Limited Space While Improving Safety

LeeSar needed to find the necessary “space to expand” and crucially, the right “footprint within that space.” This wasn’t just about finding square footage, but designing a functional layout that could handle the increased volume. Moving away from manual lifting and carrying required implementing automation, which involved selecting and integrating various technologies—like multi-level pick modules, spiral conveyors for vertical transport, and different types of roller conveyors and flow racks—to work together seamlessly.

The difficulty lay in designing this intricate, multi-component system to fit within their facility’s physical constraints, optimize workflow, and specifically enhance employee safety, a key benefit often achieved through automation as noted in the FloStor index. Successfully integrating these diverse pieces of equipment into a cohesive, efficient, and safe operation is a significant challenge that highlights the value of a system integrator like FloStor.

What were the two greatest successes in designing a solution for LeeSar?

1. Dramatic Increase in Operational Efficiency and Throughput

The new system directly addressed LeeSar’s primary challenge of keeping up with growing volumes and order lines. By implementing a more automated pick module with integrated conveyors and flow racks, they achieved a significant boost in productivity.

They increased their capacity from approximately 85 lines picked per person per hour to over 100 lines. This translated directly into a major time saving, cutting the daily picking time required for a day’s work from around 20 hours down to 14 hours. This quantifiable improvement in throughput was a core objective and a major success.

2. Significant Enhancement of Workplace Safety and Ergonomics

The previous system involved strenuous manual tasks like carrying and lifting totes, posing risks to employees. A key success of the new design was the deliberate focus on automating material movement. Totes now travel via conveyors and spirals, bringing products to pickers at ergonomic heights in flow racks.

This drastically reduced the need for manual handling and heavy lifting, directly decreasing the risk of injuries. Additionally, the specific spiral technology chosen operated quietly (under 70 decibels), contributing further to a safer and more comfortable working environment. Improving employee safety was a critical outcome beyond just efficiency gains.