Case Service best

Customer challenge

A new warehouse was inevitable for Service Best, given the growth. The professionalization of the logistics processes did not keep pace with the company's growth. The bottlenecks? Growth, ability to meet customer expectations (delivery time and quality) and the shortage in the labor market. All these aspects ultimately have an effect on customer satisfaction. If Service Best wants to continue to grow, a solution must be found for this. Our proposal? A new warehouse with a partially mechanized process.

Approach

It's great when a company is successful and starts to grow rapidly, and that also brings new challenges to face. Service Best enlisted UC Group's help to facilitate their growth. After a study that looked at the current infrastructure and identified the wishes and requirements, UC Group's advice was that the current warehouse was not scalable enough and that a new warehouse should be looked forward to.

Setting up a warehouse starts with involving the right people. UC Group believes that sustainable advice is achieved by combining input from executive professionals with analytical input. The professionals at UC Group set to work with the practical view of the warehouse employees when setting up the new warehouse. In addition to this practical view, the processes and current costs were mapped out to provide insight into the improvement potential.

Parallel to the design of a new warehouse, work had to be done on a number of other conditional areas for improvement. The system environment was one of them, as was the strengthening of the organization: in terms of manpower, competencies and culture. For all logistics activities, Service Best expected an explosion in complexity and volume. A tough change management challenge for Service Best. This challenge was met by investing in managing and coaching staff.

Results

Based on a healthy balance between investments and the expected operational costs within the new warehouse, the management of Service Best continued to opt for the proposed concept. Implementation thus became the logical next step. To ensure that the results from the pre-calculation were also achieved in practice, UC Group took care of the realization of the new infrastructure, the implementation of a new warehouse management system, the relocation and the transition to the new way of working on a project basis. Ultimately, after the transition, the entire operation was handed over to Service Best employees. This transition involved moving 20,000 pallets in two months while “the store was open” and achieving the intended working method and productivity after a natural learning curve.

Our solution

The current warehouse was not only too small, but it also no longer met today's safety and work environment standards. A new set-up was necessary, based on current technology and “best practices”. For example, a combination of shuttle and conventional systems was chosen, where separate compartments were provided for dangerous goods. These separate compartments make it possible to store dangerous substances from various hazard classes in a warehouse in accordance with PGS 15 (CPR 15-2). The warehouse was also equipped with an automated HI-EX inside and outside air foam installation. With this system, emergencies can be brought under control quickly and efficiently. The foam contains only two percent water; collateral damage to goods caused by fire water is thus kept to a minimum.

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