Working with a Pharmacy shop fitter is not in principle all that different to working with builders and an Architect when designing a home. Unless the builders have detailed plans from the architect to work to, their job becomes more difficult AND less predictable.
I therefore advise pharmacists to take advice from an experienced consultancy company completely independent of shop fitters, who can work with them from the beginning to produce a new pharmacy specification that can then be given to a number of selected shop fitters which guides shop fitters by:
- Defining the shop fitting objectives
- Setting out a pharmacy specification that can be given to shop fitters to form the basis of a design and quotation
- Deciding if current or anticipated future business levels justify pharmacy automation
- Deciding on the balance of space between dispensing, counselling and retailing
- Deciding if a temporary pharmacy needs to eb created to work in whilst the main pharmacy is built & fitted
- Highlighting any possible project risks
Only by such a structured approach can a competitive tendering process be conducted fairly and also lead to a design and at a cost that the customer requires