THE art of efficient supply chain management can be complex, but the more of the process that can be controlled by one entity, a single service provider, the better. Nick Lowe, Managing Director of Dachser UK, explains how his company is helping to simplify the complexity for its customers:
Since opening the doors to our new logistics centre on the Brackmills Estate in 2014, we have steadily increased our volumes of business and widened and diversified our customer base. Our central UK location and flexibility have been instrumental in our success. But a good location and a state-of-the-art facility don’t tell the whole story when it comes to providing efficient supply chain management.
Although the concept of getting goods from A to B and then perhaps to C, D and E may sound relatively straightforward, each type of product has its own particular sourcing process or distribution pattern. For example, hair shampoos and beauty products might be imported by truck from Germany or Poland in large quantities; they will require storage for a period, cartons will need breaking down and some of the products may need repackaging before being delivered in smaller quantities to a retailer’s regional distribution depot or direct to shops or to an online order fulfilment centre.
Equally, wine from France, toys from Vietnam or clothing from Morocco may need to be re-configured and/or labelled, put together with additional products or an instruction manual (sourced from elsewhere), or unpackaged and arranged on hangers ready to go on display.
So we take a customer-focused approach to devising bespoke supply chain solutions: we listen to our customers and find out their supply chain requirements and objectives in detail, and we devise ways of efficiently completing these tasks as seamlessly as possible, within whichever components of their transport and supply chain they wish us to attend to. Our European and global network ensures that we can co-ordinate collection, customs processes where required and international freight forwarding and transportation in addition to the local requirements here in the UK prior to and including the final mile delivery.
In delivering these contract logistics services we concentrate on adding value; we carry out what is physically and logistically required to prepare our customers’ products to be in tip-top condition at their point of sale, and we do this with a high priority on accuracy, efficiency, cost-effectiveness and reliability. We adopt a consultative approach and assist our customers in reducing their overall supply chain costs: we call this optimising their logistics balance sheet.
In our shared-user facility in Northampton we combine and leverage our resources to provide our services to a wide range of customers across many different sectors including DIY, lighting equipment, baby products, packaging materials, stationery products and so on.
Contact Dachser on 01604 433100 or visit the website www.dachser.co.uk