DHL has gained a £38 million (€42.7 million) five-year contract extension from Spicers, Europe’sleading office products wholesaler, to handle the distribution of its products in the UK.
Under the deal, DHL Supply Chain will manage distribution across Spicers’ supply chainnetwork from regional distribution centres located in Greenwich, Chessington, Bristol, Birmingham,Heywood and Glasgow to dealers and customers.
Vida Barr-Jones, Logistics & Customer Service Director at Spicers, said: “DHL has shownreal understanding of our business and our values, while demonstrating the ability to be flexiblein its approach and innovative in its thinking. Awarding this new five-year deal to DHL reflectsthe confidence we have in the team and we look forward developing a strong partnership to drivefurther cost savings and improved service delivery.”
The DHL unit will manage a dedicated fleet of 98 vehicles. Focused on enhancing efficiency,and thereby reducing costs across the supply chain, the company will continue to improveoperational processes. This includes the deployment of vehicle telematic systems to monitor fuelusage and better understand how the vehicle is being driven as well as the implementation oftracking systems to allow DHL to oversee route planning, understand the need for variances, andenable future planning across the network.
In addition, fuel efficiency will be improved through the new vehicles fitted with the “tear-drop” body design. The rigid design is expected to improve fuel consumption by approximately8%, DHL Supply Chain said.
John Boulter, Managing Director, Non Food Retail UK, DHL Supply Chain, commented: “Buildingon the great foundations at Spicers we have been able to implement improved technologies andsystems to reduce costs and maximise efficiency. We are extremely excited about the opportunity todevelop a long-term partnership with Europe’s leading office products provider and utilise our ownexpertise to benefit their wider business.”
