Patent ID: 7555875

Claim:
A medicine management system, comprising: a medicine storage unit storing at least one new cassette in which medicines are accommodated; an automatic medicine packing apparatus having a receipt processing portion, a determining portion, a transmission processing portion, and a plurality of dispensing cassettes each having a medicine stored therein, the dispensing cassettes being mounted to a plurality of cartridges and configured to dispense medicines to be packed according to an external preparation request data received by the receipt processing portion, the transmission processing portion transmitting a medicine replenishment request signal when the determining portion determines one of the dispensing cassettes is empty; a robot unit moving along a predetermined robot movement line and including a gripper for gripping the new cassette and the dispensing cassette, respectively; a central control unit operable to transmit movement control commands to the robot unit when the transmission processing portion of the automatic medicine packing apparatus generates and transmits the medicine replenishment request signal to the central control unit, the central control unit transmitting movement control commands to the robot unit corresponding to the medicine replenishment request signal to mobilize the robot unit, the robot unit gripping the empty dispensing cassette requested to be replenished from the automatic medicine packing apparatus and transferring it to a conveyer and gripping a new cassette in which the corresponding medicines are accommodated in the medicine storage unit, and transferring and mounting the new cassette to the automatic medicine packing apparatus, in response to the movement control commands.