DHL opens €40m freight logistics hub near Milan
DHL has opened a new EUR 40m logistics centre east of Milan, Italy, that will combined DHL Global Forwarding and DHL Freight operations under one roof. The new facility in Pozzuolo Martesana will serve as a hub for the company’s operations in Italy, handling around 730 road, air and ocean freight movements each week.
It includes 10,000 square metres of office space and a storage area of 26,000 square metres (280,000 square feet) in size, on a site totalling more than 83,000 square metres (890,000 sq ft).
DHL said 500 employees will be based at the new hub, which boasts 116 loading/unloading gates, separate facilities for air cargo pellets, temperature-controlled capabilities, a high-bay warehouse for clothing on hangars and a special area for dangerous goods.
The company sees the new centre as particularly important for its growing business in the life sciences, fashion and food industry segments.
Forwarding
DHL Global Forwarding, the air and freight business of Deutsche Post DHL, is expecting around 41,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of full container loads and more than 110,000 cubic metres of less-than-container load ocean freight to be handled at the logistics centre each year, along with 40,000 tonnes of cargo.
DHL Global Forwarding chief executive for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Thomas Nieszner, said the location of the new hub meant taking advantage of some of the best transport infrastructure in Italy.
The centre is situated close to two freeways, allowing it to provide a rapid transit point for air freight as well as handling export-import flows.
He explained that the centre was geared up for providing customised logistics solutions for specific industries.
“The new semi-automatic high-bay warehouse for instance, enables efficient textile logistics,” said Nieszner. “For the life sciences sector, in turn, cooling systems are available which meet international standards in order to transport the highly sensitive products.”
Freight
DHL Freight, meanwhile, is dispatching 120 full trucks per day from the centre, and is expecting around 810,000 tons of road freight each year will flow through the new hub.
Amadou Diallo, the DHL Freight chief executive, said that the new hub is also designed to help with his company’s sustainability efforts through its GoGreen environmental protection programme.
He said: “With the commissioning of the new logistics centre, we are reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 18%, of which 13% is attributed to an improved road network and associated cuts in travel times and fuel consumption.”
