PostNL Parcels this week opened its eighth newly-built depot as part of its ongoing €240 millioninvestment in expanding and modernising capacity to cope with an e-commerce-driven surge in
volumes.The Dutch parcels company opened the depot at Sittard-Geleen, in the south-east Netherlands,close to the junction of the E25 motorway linking the cities of Maastricht and Eindhoven and theE314 running from Germany through the southern tip of the Netherlands into Belgium.
Representatives from PostNL, depot operator Vixia and the municipality of Sittard-Geleensymbolically fed the first parcel onto the conveyor belt at the new sorting and distributioncentre.
The new location will create work for about 100 people in the sorting operation as well asabout 150 parcel deliverers. About 90 jobs will be for long-term unemployed local people and othersclassified as “distant from the labour market”.
Under the €240 million investment programme, PostNL Parcels has so far opened seven newdepots at Utrecht, Waddinxveen, Elst, Den Bosch, Hengelo, Breda and Amersfoort. A further ten willfollow, giving the business a logistics infrastructure of 18 modern depots by 2015. Theseintegrated depots, where parcels are sorted and then distributed to the surrounding region, aregradually replacing the former split network of four regional sorting centres and 37 localdistribution centres.
In 2015, PostNL Parcels will then have capacity to handle 140 million packages a year. Thebusiness expects volumes to grow substantially in the years ahead, especially due to the stronggrowth of the e-commerce market.
In 2011, PostNL Parcels handled 106 million parcels and made an operating profit of €88million on revenues of €608 million.
