DHL Express has launched its Sub-Saharan African Quality Control Centre (QCC) in Johannesburg,South Africa, to ensure shipment quality in the region and as the first of several forthcoming
regional investments.The multi-million Rand centre, which is located at the DHL Express Sub-Saharan headquartersin Johannesburg, links Sub-Saharan Africa to the world via the four Global Quality Control Centresin Bonn, Singapore (servicing Asia Pacific), Leipzig (servicing Europe) and Cincinnati (servicingthe Americas).
This facility is the first in a series of investments planned by DHL Express in Africa overthe next twelve months, the company disclosed.
Charles Brewer, Managing Director of DHL Express Sub-Saharan Africa, said the Africa QualityControl Centre would enable DHL “to deliver certainty in an uncertain world”, despite adverseweather conditions, natural disasters, political unrest or infrastructure breakdown. At the heartof every QCC is a monitoring facility with eyes on the world. “Thanks to the centre, we aremanaging shipments proactively on a real time basis from start to finish, taking decisive actionwhen necessary to ensure their fast and secure delivery,” he said.
The new Quality Control Centre will have two key areas of focus. One of these is ServiceRecovery, where a breakdown in the shipment process chain is identified at the earliest possibletime to activate agreed contingency plans to maintain quoted service levels. The other isPro-Active Notification in order to provide visibility for delays and impact in the event of anunavoidable service incident.
These two areas are made possible through real-time checkpoints which exist to allow forreal-time responses. As shipments move through the next stage of their journey, DHL captures theinformation across millions of checkpoints every 15 minutes. This information allows the controlcentre to react immediately should a checkpoint not be activated.
Tanya Elms, Vice President Service Quality of Global Network Operations, explained that thefour Global Quality Control Centres monitor the movement of more than 1 billion units. “Globally,DHL Express has over 30,000 touch points and in excess of 100,000 staff in a network covering over220 countries and territories,” she said. “Due to the pace of growth in key emerging markets suchas Africa, the need for an additional Quality Control Centre – to monitor both the day-to-daymovement of all goods as well as to manage crises as and when they happen – was evident.”
Adrian Whelan, Global Head of Customs and Security at DHL Express, added: “Given the highvalue of our customers’ shipments, not to mention the increase in trade we are seeing in theSub-Saharan region, we are sure that the new Quality Control Centre will enable us to continue tomeet and exceed our customers’ expectations. For all of those businesses looking to invest intoAfrica, we believe that DHL’s Sub-Saharan footprint will be of great value in potentiallychallenging times.”
