Birds of a feather....

When the lockdown started back in the early spring, it was a worrying time for the RSPB as all their fundraising activities and shops were significantly affected. Without the revenue from the shops, the RSPBs valuable work was impacted.

At the Unipart Rail distribution centre in Weedon, where we manage the distribution of RSPB products, dispatching product to the shops ceased, but with the closure of garden centres and other outlets for nature-related products, on-line ordering increased massively - on some days in Weedon it was 250% above daily averages!

There were other impacts on our warehouse including a reduced headcount due to self-isolation and shielding, so we had a potential problem - how to continue to serve our customer with impacted resources.

Wayne Martin, RSPB Operations Manager at Weedon said "We had to work very fast to adapt to the new situation. We were able to allocate five of our team from another contract (where volumes had reduced) to work solely on the RSPB materials, and used the Unipart Way to undertake some deep analysis of the changes to order patterns (dispatch to consumers is very different to sending pallets of materials to shops) and realised that we needed to reorganise our warehouse to make the pick, pack and dispatch more aligned to the new order patterns - whilst still maintaining social distancing to protect our team. As a result of this, we saw a 25% process efficiency improvement - enabling us to meet the challenge of the swift changes in ordering patterns."

The changed work patterns resulted in some impressive figures from the small team:

• Daily Record set at 2,795 orders dispatched ina day
• Weekly record set at 10,080 orders dispatched
• Daily pick record set at 350 orders in 8 hours

Wayne added "Being able to flex our workforce across contracts was key to managing this initiative, and it was an incredible learning curve for us and we now have additional tools which we can use for future rapid responses to changing customers needs."

Rebecca Munro, Executive Director, Fundraising & Communications at RSPB said "I wanted to drop you a note to say a huge thank you from the RSPB to Unipart for the amazing work you are doing for us at the moment.  The record orders being placed and dispatched are a real credit to you and your team. Our charity, like many others, has been hit financially by the Corona virus but the great results we are seeing from our mail-order business are really making a difference.  And never before have our customers and supporters been more appreciative and connected to the nature in their gardens, which you play a huge part in making happen.

Many thanks again for being a wonderful partner and keeping us going in these challenging times." 

It's not unusual that RSPB is a Unipart Rail customer - our solutions can be applied to many different sectors where supply chain effectiveness is a key driver to business success.

Adding Value with ncreased Performance