KUALA LUMPUR (April 4): Prescription pharmacy chain Alpro Pharmacy is investing RM15 million to introduce an intelligent logistics system, expected to triple logistics efficiency of its inventory management.

In a statement on Monday (April 3), Alpro said it had inked a memorandum of understanding with HIKROBOT, an international provider of machine vision and mobile robot products and solutions, to leverage AI logistics in the pharmaceuticals industry.

Alpro chief executive officer Low Swee Siong said through HIKROBOT’s technology and expertise, the pharmacy chain aims to set the benchmark and standard that will accelerate Malaysia’s pharmaceutical industry into a digitalised and tech-oriented future.

“For our customers, this collaboration will also provide faster, safer and more efficient provision of our services.

“We plan to introduce HIKROBOT’s intelligent mobile robots in the third quarter of 2023 and apply them to our central warehouse,” said Low.

He said with the adoption of this cutting-edge intelligent logistics system, Alpro Pharmacy can better manage its medication inventory and logistic systems. Medicine inventory management is a crucial component for medicine distributors such as Alpro in the pharmaceutical industry, as the quality and safety of medicine directly affects the consumers.

Low said the introduction of HIKROBOT’s intelligent logistics system will provide automated operations and precise management of medicine inventory, thereby reducing human error, particularly for medicine which require attentive care, such as cold chain medicine.

He said the intelligent logistics system is expected to help Alpro Pharmacy’s professionals save time and energy, allowing them the capacity to further improve service quality and professional competence to provide better services to customers.