The customer is a leading UK retailer, offering a wide range of products in store and online. Wincanton has worked collaboratively with the retailer for over six years. This wide-reaching partnership sees Wincanton manage omnichannel distribution centres and provide two-person home delivery for products direct to customers across the country.

Wincanton conducts two-person home deliveries for the customer from its warehouse in the north-west of England. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, operations were required to relocate to a new DC at short notice. 

Wincanton was required to support the identification of an alternative DC and set-up like-for-like operational infrastructure at the new location. The operational and asset transfer was conducted without any disruption to customer service, with the project culminating in the decommissioning and clearing of the existing DC. 

All project activity had to be executed within a 12-week timeframe.

Delivering at pace was the key to success. Wincanton utilised its oneVASTwarehouse space platform to identify a new 20,000 sq ft cross dock warehouse. Using OneVASTwarehouse the customer benefitted from on-demand access to storage, reduced set-up times and costs as part of the relocation of the home delivery operation.

Wincanton deployed an experienced project team early to lead a seamless transition, delivered to the quality expected by the customer. This team led delapse activity at the existing DC, ensuring site transfer and decommissioning activities were delivered on-time and on-budget.

Demonstrating the agility required to meet the supply chain needs of a major multichannel retailer, Wincanton successfully exited the site ahead of the project completion date, seamlessly transferring vehicles, equipment, IT, and colleagues.

The relocated operation is now responsible for 300 dispatch orders on 20 specialist home delivery vehicles every day. This activity, powered by 60 colleagues, is supported by a warehouse which takes receipt of goods from more than 30 inbound trunking HGVs every week.

Throughout the 12 weeks of the project there was no service disruption or impact on customer service for the retailers’ two-person home delivery operations. Furthermore, the new site provides the customer with long-term supply chain surety, preserving the high level of customer experience it is renowned for.