IU Health opens Plainfield distribution center

PLAINFIELD, Ind. (WISH) — IU Health is showing off it’s new 300,000-square-foot distribution center in Plainfield.

Robots pick much of the inventory, as IU Health showed in a video it shared.

The facility serves all 16 IU Health hospitals in Indiana. Facility personnel make sure the hospital have all the supplies they need — from gauze to gloves and syringes and surgical masks. 

IU Health said the distribution center will save them millions of dollars a year.

Dennis Mullins, senior vice president of supply chain for IU Health, said, “Historically, we’ve used third-party distributors. We actually buy products from literally thousands of manufacturers, and we were pushing them through one distributor. There’s a cost associated with that, so becoming our own distributor is how we’re going to pay back on this investment.” 

Plans call for the distribution center to eventually supply the hundreds of IU Health doctors, urgent cares and surgery centers in Indiana as well.