Live Event Series: See real-world automation in action.
“When we built the Bensheim 2 site, we suddenly had to pick in a month what would previously have taken a year....[For this reason] It was always important to have a solution that is flexible and works well for multiple types of customers. The nice thing about the system is that if we recognize a peak in a certain warehouse, we can react; not only to deploy more employee capacity but also robots, in order to create a more powerful team.”
LGI Logistics Group International GmbH
MSK Pharma Group at a Glance:
When demand shifts between its two warehouses, can reassign robot capacity between facilities in approximately 15 minutes.
- 63 Locus robots across two neighboring sites
- 55,000+ average daily units processed
- 6,400+ average daily order lines handled
- Robot capacity can be reassigned between facilities in approximately 15 minutes
Scaling Throughput in a Highly Regulated Environment
Pharmaceutical fulfillment is difficult to scale because growth, compliance, traceability, and demand volatility must all be managed at the same time.
MSK Pharma Group needed a fulfillment model that could increase throughput across multiple sites while maintaining operational control in a highly regulated environment — without locking the business into fixed infrastructure.
Based in Bensheim, Germany, MSK Pharma Group serves pharmacies, wholesalers, and healthcare customers across pharmaceutical fulfillment and distribution operations.
MSK operates in a highly regulated pharmaceutical environment where fulfillment processes must support serialization, lot tracking, expiry-date validation, and real-time traceability.
MSK’s new, second facility was built to support rapid demand growth. But across both its brownfield and greenfield sites, MSK needed fulfillment infrastructure capable of scaling quickly, adapting between facilities, and maintaining operational control without locking the business into fixed constraints.
The Challenge: Scaling Pharmaceutical Fulfillment Without Fixed Constraints
Before deploying Locus Robotics, associates relied on manual cart-based picking and extensive travel, creating long walking distances, high travel time, and limits on pick productivity.
The challenge was not only to improve picking performance, but to create a more scalable operating model across MSK’s growing warehouse network. As demand increased, MSK needed fulfillment infrastructure that could adapt across facilities, customer requirements, and workflow types without forcing the business into fixed automation constraints.
MSK needed a solution that could support:
- Growth across multiple facilities
- Demand shifts between sites
- Different pharma and e-commerce workflows
- Fast onboarding and operational adoption
- Future warehouse expansion
The Results: Reduced Walking. Higher Throughput. Greater Flexibility
With Locus Robotics, MSK was able to deploy automation incrementally and adapt robot capacity across both of its neighboring facilities without disruption.
Today, the operation runs:
- 63 Locus robots across two sites
- 55,000+ average daily units processed
- 6,400+ average daily order lines handled
- Robot capacity can be reassigned between facilities in approx. 15 minutes
The deployment combines collaborative Locus robots with LocusONE™ orchestration to coordinate workflows, labor, and robot movement in real time.
For MSK, adaptability became one of their biggest operational advantages.
If demand shifts between warehouses, robot fleets can be reassigned between facilities in approximately 15 minutes. That flexibility allows the operation to respond to changing workload conditions without rebuilding infrastructure or overcommitting fixed capacity.
As a result, key outcomes include:
- Reduced walking and travel time
- Higher pick productivity
- Faster onboarding and adoption
- Flexible scaling across facilities
- Improved cartonization and downstream shipping efficiency through pick-to-carton workflows
- Improved coordination between picking and packing through system-directed routing to active pack stations
Adaptive Pharmaceutical Fulfillment at Scale
MSK is now preparing for continued expansion, including a third warehouse facility planned for 2027 and future evaluation of Locus solutions for additional e-commerce workflows.
Watch the video above to see how MSK Pharma Group uses Locus Robotics to scale regulated fulfillment across multiple sites while maintaining the flexibility to adapt to future growth.