Sammendrag
The covid19 pandemic, which truck the world in 2020, demonstrated the importance of having a solid sanitary system and the vitality of such sector for the people’s safety and health security. The warehousing operations and logistics are one of the most important and critical parts of the health care system supply chain. With geographical challenges, strict time schedule, and diverse choice of suppliers, the warehousing operations of the hospitals in Norway, specifically in Trondheim, are under more pressure than ever, and the need to increase efficiency and improve performance is greater.
As a cost reducing and performance improving plan, the trend in the medical warehousing operations is to implement technological advancements.
The theory and literature appear to lack specifications regarding the hospital warehousing operations. This has a negative impact on the way of implementing technological advancements into the hospital warehouse.
The objective of this master thesis is to investigate the challenges and the effects of implementing new technologies into the medical warehousing operations. The outcome of this investigation will help to build a framework to implement technological advancements in a proper and more convenient way to the hospital warehouses.
The research design of the project is a literature study first, of the most relevant topics, combined with a case study of the logistics center of St.Olavs hospital in Trondheim, Norway. Both the literature study and the case study were used to build up the discussion answering the research questions and the objectives of the master thesis.