Welcome to the UNICEF Global Supply Hub, home to the largest humanitarian warehouse in the world!
We support children and their families around the globe as we procure and dispatch lifesaving supplies to those in need.
Located in the northern harbor of Copenhagen, Denmark, the warehouse spans
an area of more than 20,000 square meters the equivalent of three football fields.
Boasting cutting-edge technology, the warehouse is almost fully automated and stores around 850 different supply items.
We have 50 types of standard kits such as School-in-a-Box, Interagency Emergency Health,
menstrual hygiene kits for immediate dispatch in case of an emergency
as well as 24 customer-specific kits upon demand.
Together with regional hubs in Brindisi, Dubai and Panama City,
the Global Supply Hub is at the core of the global humanitarian supply chain.
At any point, UNICEF Supply hubs have enough emergency supplies to meet the needs of 250,000 people for three months.
In order to be as efficient and sustainable as possible,
only five per cent of what UNICEF delivers around the globe comes through the UNICEF Supply hubs.
Most deliveries are shipped directly from suppliers to the destination country,
while others come from local warehouses managed by UNICEF regional and country offices.
Bulk deliveries are mainly transported by sea, except for vaccines and most emergency shipments which are sent by air.
Vaccines and food supplies are not stored in the warehouse.
They're delivered directly from manufacturers to the destination country.
The warehouse is divided into three sections: the area where goods are received and dispatched,
the kit packing lines and the High Bay.
In the goods receiving and dispatch section, goods are brought via robot cranes, conveyors and a monorail, all automated.
The goods arrive with barcodes and are scanned into the system with handheld scanners.
The computer records exactly what is on the pallet, for the duration of its time in the warehouse.
For instance, it will know that we have 5,000 packs of amoxicillin antibiotic tablets
their manufacturing date, batch number, expiry date and more information.
The system delivers the pallet into the High Bay storage area.
Every delivery is quality controlled to make sure it is exactly what we ordered, at the specifications and quality needed.
Our dispatch of goods follows the same principles with barcodes that are tracked until delivery.
The kit packing lines are staffed by highly trained and experienced warehouse operators.
In this section, we have feeding stations where staff pack small items.
We also have two main packing lines where goods are packed in cartons.
A range of tools make the warehouse staff's work easier and more efficient -
including vacuum lifts, palletizer robots and a shrink wrapper.
The monorail is at the backbone of the operation, moving pallets in and out of storage and on and off the entire system
in a T-shaped loop.
Directed by a computer, the monorail picks up a certain pallet and delivers it to another location in the warehouse.
This is the fully automated High Bay storage area.
It is 24 meters high, 60 meters wide and 150 meters long.
It has more space than the largest French cathedral
and is three times as large as the Royal Albert Hall in London.
The High Bay can store up to 36,000 pallets of supplies and is serviced by eight robot cranes
to deliver and retrieve these pallets.
We have 30 thermo-logs to ensure the right temperature throughout the year.
Humans are not allowed in here. Movement is completely controlled by a computer.
This system ensures that the materials are spread equally within each aisle allowing
for a quick response in case there's an emergency or if a crane breaks down.
The system also ensures rotation of items on a First In - First Out or First Expiry Date - First Out basis.
UNICEF is a key player in the new global ACT Accelerator making COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines available to
everybody who needs them as quickly as possible.
UNICEF is procuring and pre-positioning WHO
pre-qualified auto-disabled syringes making it possible to vaccinate people in low and lower
middle-income countries when a vaccine becomes available.
Syringes and safety boxes used for their
disposal are being pre-positioned at the UNICEF Supply hubs in Copenhagen and in Dubai.
Thank you for taking this quick tour of our state-of-the-art UNICEF Global Supply Hub in Copenhagen
where we continue to work around the clock to deliver lifesaving supplies around the world.