When Southmead Hospital in Bristol was expanded to take on the workload of Frenchay Hospital, the nine hundred bed Brunel Building was added in 2013. It was built by Carillion and a futuristic state of the art PFI, Aerocom won the tender to install a 160mm pneumatic tube system which was quite a challenge to connect underground to the existing pathology building over a distance of 650m from the site limits. We have serviced this system since commissioning and it still performs as new.
The AGV system at Southmead Hospital was installed by a competitor, we did not supply AGVs at this time, only pneumatic tube systems. Our interests developed in the AGV market during this and subsequent new build hospital projects and Aerocom began to source suppliers and often all conveyance systems were becoming a combined tender package.
It’s not an easy task to diversify from a know product line to a new robotic conveyance method, the demand was there as all subsequent new build hospitals were sourcing contractor to install AGV systems, so we did some in depth research into the concept, and sourced suppliers who manufactured dedicated healthcare systems. A few projects down the line and we now have trained our workforce on both AVG installation and aftercare.
Currently we go from strength to strength, not only installing new AGV systems, but also providing services for systems where the original supplier has let the customer down and no longer provides support. At Southmead the original AGV system was all but abandoned, the service provider could not source parts and only two of the nine units were in operation. The facilities management Equans UK asked Aerocom if they could service their AGVs and source parts, we did have contact with the company who manufactured the vehicles but had no access to the hardware or software.
We contacted the original supplier who had a similar system running in Scotland and sent our service technician Dave Bosworth to get some insight into how the system operates and assess how we could move this forward. He got a cool reception and little in the way of help, just a few sketchy manuals. With assistance from our AGV partner OTSAW based in Singapore, and some other experts in Germany, Dave started to put together the pieces of what was looking like a jigsaw with many parts missing.
At Aerocom we pride ourselves on multitasking, Dave is a prime example of this as he started as a storeman for Aerocom in 2019 answering a local job ad, he did seem a little overqualified for this role within weeks had totally rationalised our storage and logistics operation and found time to assist with other administration. Dave explained he wanted to do more hands on work but took the stores job opportunity as it was handy at the time. A volunteer is worth ten pressed men as they say and Dave had great computer skills so was already halfway there for understanding our software driven pneumatic tube systems, he received training and quickly became a dedicated competent PTS service technician.
With limited information or manuals, and some basic training on AGVs from our other suppliers Dave again volunteered to take up the challenge at Southmead and set about rationalising why so many of their AGVs were not in service. A lot was due to defective parts, the previous service provider has been using the robbing Peter to pay Paul system which escalated to seven of the nine AGVs being used for part to keep just two working. Taking on board Equans FM’s observations it was concluded that the batteries were a big part of the problem. We sourced new improved Lithium Ion batteries and Dave immediately put 3 more AGVs into service. Having power also helped diagnose what was stopping the remaining vehicles from functioning. He listed parts and we managed to source them in Germany or the far East.
Another obstacle was the software was running on an obsolete windows operating system and failing server, Dave set to work on upgrading the control hardware and software then modifying the control compatibility by replacing hardware and software on the AGVs.
It was a steep learning curve and an admirable effort which did take a few weeks to sort out but has now put all nine AGVs back into service. Dave’s systematic approach to evaluating the equipment and resurrecting the system to its full potential has been admirable.
