Prime Highlights
- CVS Pharmacy is expanding robotics across its distribution centres, boosting efficiency, accuracy, and fulfilment capacity.
- The company has also teamed up with Google Cloud to develop an AI-powered health platform focused on personalised care and improved patient access.
Key Facts
- CVS’s Lumberton facility now processes 1.9 million products weekly after significantly increasing output through automation.
- The retailer achieves over 99.9% order-picking accuracy while lowering costs and improving workplace safety.
Background
CVS Pharmacy is rebuilding its supply chain and consumer health experience from the ground up, using robotics and artificial intelligence to move faster, cut costs and put more focus on the patient.
The pharmacy giant runs automated distribution centres in Hainesport and Lumberton in New Jersey, where hundreds of robots handle sorting, storage and order fulfilment across more than 10,000 product lines.
Three technology partners drive the operation. AutoStore manages storage, Tompkins Robotics deploys its tSort platform to sort products autonomously using more than 420 robots, and Bastian Solutions connects the two systems through its Exacta software to keep inventory tracking seamless.
The results at the Lumberton centre stand out. Daily output has climbed from 150,000 to more than 400,000 products, pushing weekly throughput to 1.9 million units. Operational costs have dropped 40 per cent compared to other CVS distribution centres, and pick accuracy sits above 99.9 per cent.
The modular system can be reconfigured in minutes without any downtime, and employees face less physical strain on the floor. Jamie Tatum, Lead Director of Supply Chain Strategy at CVS, said the combined Tompkins and AutoStore implementation has delivered efficiency, accuracy and scalability while improving employee satisfaction.
CVS plans to add 750 more robots at the 160,000 square foot Lumberton centre, which could give it the capacity of a facility six times its size. Beyond distribution, CVS is pushing into consumer health technology.
The company partnered with Google Cloud to develop Health100, a platform that uses agentic AI tools including Google’s Gemini models, Cloud Healthcare API and BigQuery to give consumers personalised care and clearer cost information.
Tilak Mandadi, Executive Vice President and Chief Experience and Technology Officer at CVS Health, said the platform puts the consumer at the centre of a fully integrated healthcare experience built on responsible AI principles.
