Inside Cardinal Health at-Home Solutions’ distribution centers, more than 1,700 employees work together to achieve one important purpose: Ship more than 80,000 packages filled with medical supplies directly to people who need them every day.
It’s a purpose that matters deeply to Cardinal Health and to the patients we serve: Most of these supplies are life-sustaining – from catheters to continuous glucose monitors, nutritional feeding supplies to CPAP and ostomy supplies. The business understands there’s no room for error and has made investments over the last three years to expand its distribution footprint and modernize its facilities, mainly based on customer needs and growth.
Through these investments, at-Home Solutions has created a well-oiled direct-to-patient distribution machine. Its strategically located distribution centers (DCs) can get packages to nearly all Americans in just 24 hours.
at-Home Solutions’ newest sites take automation to the next level:
In 2023, at-Home Solutions began opening new, highly automated buildings, starting first in Ohio, then South Carolina. The business soon began to see important metrics improvements – from employee safety and productivity to order fulfillment speed and accuracy. Its investments in space and technology were paying off.
Once these two new buildings were up and running, the business set sights on Texas. The growth in this region of the U.S. for the business is substantial and enabled the exploration of new paths to service.
at-Home Solutions' main 150,000 square-foot location in Fort Worth had been in operation for about 15 years. Over time, the business used two existing Cardinal Health medical distribution centers, creating annexed spaces to help manage the demand in volume for the region. But operating two facilities was expensive and inefficient. The business needed more physical, solely dedicated space.
“It was at this time that we began looking to another option – the potential to build brand new,” said Lane Long, director of operations for the at-Home Solutions’ Fort Worth region.
The team began planning for a new space in Texas while simultaneously building its South Carolina DC. Once the new Texas facility was built, its existing buildings would be decommissioned and consolidated into this larger building.
“We were very aware of the obstacles ahead of us,” Long said, “We had to get this right for our customers, and we also wanted our new space to be close to the existing buildings so that we could retain our employee talent in Texas.”
Standing up the new facility was a complex, high stakes build and move that required a careful collaboration between real estate, IT, operations, security, inventory planning, supply chain logistics and more.
“Our charge was to move about $40 million worth of inventory from two facilities into one while simultaneously keeping the right level of stock in both facilities during the transition phase,” said Kim Schaff, at-Home Solutions’ supervisor of supply chain and inventory management. “We had to account for all the inventory moving to and from our sites.”
This meant a great deal of advance inventory planning and flexibility from operations vs. new stock deliveries into a brand-new facility.
Schaff explained, “This was the largest move ever done within at-Home Solutions in my more than 20 years with Cardinal Health. For the sake of patients and customers, we were highly focused on the product categories we were moving and strategically timed that with customer order flow – which included reduction and winding down inbound deliveries from the old site, as well as getting the right level and mix of product to our new site. We did this while maintaining targeted fill rates and service levels to our customers.”
After one year of building the new site, it took roughly 14 weeks to complete the phased inventory move. During this time, Long’s team faced another significant milestone – it was time to train employees on how to use all the automation and robotics that would be within their new facility. For Long, as the leader of the Fort Worth team, employee career pathing, training and happiness was a top priority.
“This was uncharted territory, and we were humbled in many instances by this new building,” he said. “We are good at what we do and know how to operate. However, the advancements in technology were something we all had to learn. We had to leverage the collaborative power of the network, especially our teammates in Ohio and South Carolina who were familiar with the robotics and automation we now had access to. We were made stronger by the teams around us.”
Lane and his leadership team spent countless hours in training on-site so employees could learn the new technologies and important safety protocols prior to opening. Employees were able to train hands-on with the automated technology prior to the building opening. This meant that not only did opening the site go smoother for employee experience, but the facility was able to flip the switch much quicker to begin servicing customers.
The greatest reward? Long explained, “We were inspired to be trusted with the keys to one of the most significant investments in our network. We spent a lot of time creating a space that our teammates would be excited about and proud of – while creating something that would excel in the servicing of our customers. Seeing the ability of my team to perform with a plan and their passion for doing something beyond themselves were mesmerizing to watch.”
Not only were the employees excited to call this building their new workplace – their families were too. This July, the site hosted a Family Day celebration to honor the official opening of the new building. In addition to giving employees’ family members a tour of the new facility and demonstrations of the automation and robotics inside, the event featured games, door prizes, food and activities. Event attendees could participate in a dunk tank for food donations. One can of food earned one throw, totaling 723 pounds of donations for the Fort Worth Food Bank.
Anyone who attended the event was invited to leave their mark on the “wall of hands,” adding a layer of personalization for this newly opened facility.
“This celebration really gave our employees’ children, spouses and other family members a sense of gravity to what we do and how we serve our community,” said Long. “I am incredibly proud of this team and the mission we serve, and now – their families have a reason to deeply share in that pride having seen what we do first-hand.”
The more than 220 employees who worked within the at-Home Solutions Fort Worth region successfully moved to the new building in the summer of 2025. At 340,000 square feet, the facility is one of the largest and most automated sites in the at-Home Solutions’ network.
Photo captions: On our landing page: During the new Texas site's Family Day celebration, employees and their families were invited to place their handprints on the facility’s "Wall of Hands" to represent the teamwork and effort the move required. On this page: Employees in the new facility.
Editor’s note: at-Home Solutions operates as both a direct provider and wholesale medical supplies distributor, serving 6 million people annually. Learn more about the business here.