Hospital logistics · Hospital intralogistics · Relief for clinical teams
Hospital logistics connects materials, transport, people, information and care delivery. PEC analyses and optimises these processes from goods receipt to the bedside – data-led, implementation-focused and during ongoing operations.
Transparency around routes, volumes and orders
Relief for clinical and functional departments
Management through roles, service levels and KPIs
A system, not isolated transport tasks
Hospital logistics is more than material supply or patient transport. It connects clinical and non-clinical departments through reliable flows of goods, people and information. Its quality affects whether materials are available, appointments are kept and clinical staff can devote their time to care delivery.
Effective hospital logistics manages demand, orders, priorities, routes and responsibilities end to end. It also requires digital transparency, reliable KPIs and decisions about which services should be delivered centrally, locally, in-house or by partners.
Interactive process map
Select an area. The map shows typical risks, relevant KPIs and specific optimisation levers.
01 · Patient transport
Transport to diagnostics, operating theatres and functional departments requires clear priorities, status information and coordinated time windows.
02 · Material logistics
From goods receipt through storage and order picking to the ward, inventory, replenishment and consumption need to function as one process.
03 · Pharmaceutical logistics
Routine supply and urgent requirements need separate management channels, documented handovers and reliable time windows.
04 · Sterile goods and operating theatres
Sterile-goods cycles require transparent volumes, secure handovers and robust coordination between the sterile services department, operating theatres and transport.
05 · Laboratory and specimens
Specimens, blood products and findings require defined priorities, safe transport conditions and documented status information.
06 · Meal supply
Meal logistics connects production schedules, ward workflows, dietary requirements and returns.
07 · Laundry supply
Laundry cycles benefit from defined ranges, demand-based volumes and planned returns.
08 · Waste management
Waste disposal, empty containers and returns should be integrated into overall planning without mixing clean and contaminated areas.
09 · Buildings and sites
Multiple buildings or sites require shared standards alongside clearly defined local responsibilities.
Identify issues early
Clinical staff regularly run errands or transport materials or patients because a reliable service is unavailable.
Orders are initiated verbally, by telephone or through individual arrangements and can neither be prioritised nor tracked.
Material inventory is high, yet items are missing at the point of use and wards build up their own reserves.
No one can reliably state how many orders, empty runs, special trips or escalations actually occur.
Buildings or hospitals use different roles, services and systems even though their requirements are the same.
Automation is discussed before processes, handover points, volumes and responsibilities have been defined and stabilised.
90-second check
Receive an initial assessment of organisation, processes, management, data and automation readiness. The result is not an expert opinion or an external benchmark.
Your assessment
The assessment is based solely on the information you provide. It is not an external benchmark or a guarantee of economic benefits, and it does not replace an on-site analysis.
From transparency to implementation
Technology is not the starting point. The starting point is a sound understanding of demand, routes, roles and impact.
Process mapping, site observations, volume structures, order and route analyses, and discussions with the departments involved.
Centralised, decentralised or hybrid: operating model, roles, service levels, handover points and supply cycles are brought together.
Relief for clinical teams, process costs, inventories, space and investment options are assessed using transparent assumptions.
A priority area is implemented during ongoing operations. Impact, acceptance and KPIs are assessed before rollout.
Standards are rolled out across departments or sites. Digitalisation and automation follow selectively once processes are stable.
Concrete project deliverables
PEC does not deliver an abstract target model without a path to implementation. The results create a sound basis for operational decisions.
Current-state process and logistics flow map
Volume, route and demand analysis
Clinical-team relief and process-cost analysis
Target operating model and responsibility matrix
Service-level and supply concept
Route, cycle and handover concept
Business case with transparent assumptions
Pilot, rollout and automation roadmap
KPI system for operational management
Measure what needs to be managed
The right KPI set depends on the logistics flow, service commitment and available data. The important point is that KPIs lead to operational decisions.
Transport orders per day, department, time window and employee.
Waiting time, order duration, punctuality and escalation time.
Missing items, special trips, on-time delivery and service-level fulfilment.
Empty journeys, duplicate journeys, route utilisation and unplanned transports.
Days of supply, availability, emergency orders and decentralised reserves.
Transport time spent by clinical teams, released capacity and process costs.
Illustrative project situation
The following scenario illustrates a possible project pathway. It is not a published client case study and contains no promised outcome figures.
Several buildings, different transport services, orders accepted by telephone and a high proportion of unplanned journeys by clinical and functional departments.
Capture transports and demand, define order types and priorities, pilot central management and agree service levels with the departments.
After the pilot, measured lead times, utilisation, relief for clinical teams and a scalable target operating model are available for the remaining sites.
Responsibility and implementation
PEC Healthcare combines an understanding of care delivery, organisation and hospital operations with methods from operational excellence and industrial intralogistics. The aim is not to transfer industrial processes uncritically, but to adapt proven principles to clinical priorities, hygiene, safety and ongoing care delivery.
“We always consider organisation, processes, technology and people as an interconnected system.”
Endrit Haliti
Managing Director, PEC Healthcare GmbH
Methodology and transparency
Potential estimates must not be derived from a general industry percentage. PEC therefore distinguishes between initial orientation, local measurement and a sound decision paper.
The maturity check on this page is deliberately not an external benchmark. The existing potential calculator adds an indicative capacity and value assessment.
Open the logistics potential calculatorGuidance for decision-makers
It includes patient, material, pharmaceutical, sterile-goods, laboratory, meal, laundry and waste logistics, as well as cross-site transport and the management of related orders.
The first step is transparency around volumes, routes, roles and service levels. Orders, priorities and routes are then standardised and piloted. Digitalisation or automation follows selectively once processes are stable.
This varies significantly by hospital, division of responsibilities and logistics model. A reliable answer requires a local assessment of activities, volumes and routes. The potential calculator initially provides only an indicative range.
No. Initial improvements often come from clear responsibilities, bundled orders, defined routes and reliable management. Automation follows on the basis of stable processes and a sound business case.
Useful inputs include transport orders, volumes, time windows, workforce and organisational data, building and route information, inventories, service levels and observations from day-to-day operations.
Yes. A shared target operating model, central management principles and clearly defined local responsibilities become particularly important across several buildings or sites.
The primary aim is to reduce non-clinical tasks performed by clinical and functional teams, make supply more reliable and use existing capacity more effectively. Workforce implications are assessed transparently and jointly.
A focused start includes clarifying objectives, requesting data, conducting an on-site walk-through and selecting a suitable pilot area. This provides a sound basis for defining the scope of a more detailed analysis.
Next step
In an initial conversation, we clarify the current situation, relevant logistics flows and a suitable scope for an analysis or pilot.