Peak condition
With the new £31m Midlands Super Hub up to speed and 5,000 additional couriers set to bolster its delivery ranks across the UK, Hermes believes it will be in peak condition for the upcoming seasonal rush. Hermes Managing Director Martijn de Lange told Post&Parcel that the peak season deliveries may be crammed into a few frenetic weeks, but the planning for peak is now a year-round process.
The new Super Hub in Rugby will be an integral part of Hermes’ operation. The facility, which was officially opened in August, has raised the company’s overall parcel processing capacity by 45%.
Over the past couple of months, Hermes has been stepping up the pace and it will be firing on all cylinders next month.
“We have been averaging between 800,000 and 900,000 parcels a day off peak this year. At the moment, this has moved up to about one million,” said de Lange. “At peak, we expect to be doing between 1.7m and 1.8m a day.”
This is a step-up from last year’s peak – when Hermes was averaging between 1.5m and 1.6m a day – but de Lange believes it is well within the company’s capabilities.
There are two reasons for this.
Firstly, said de Lange, the parcel volumes this year are likely to be more evenly spread across the season, with less pronounced spikes on the big days like Black Friday or the cut-off before Christmas. Better communication between the retailers and their delivery partners – and also the retailers and their customers – are playing a key role in softening those spikes.
Secondly, Hermes knows that it has sufficient tolerance in the system. Hermes’ Warrington hub has a capacity just shy of a million parcels a day, and Rugby can handle over a million; so together they should be well placed to manage peak even if the volumes are higher than expected.
Hermes is also poised to handle future growth. The Rugby hub is currently running with two tiers of sortation equipment but the facility has been designed to accommodate a third tier, which would add another 500,000 parcels a day capacity. The likelihood is that the third tier will be brought online for the 2019 peak season. This would be done off-peak – and de Lange said Hermes knows how to keep the operation running while the upgrade takes place, because of its experience of adding a second tier at Warrington.
Alongside the hub expansion programme, Hermes has also been investing in its communications and IT infrastructure.
“Our new website and app, that we are launching next year, are about improving and personalizing the customers’ delivery experience,” said de Lange. “We want the customer to feel informed and in control – tracking and managing their own deliveries.
“With the new app and communication tools, they will know when to expect their deliveries, who is making their deliveries, and they can also choose from a range of alternative delivery options.”
Rounding off its obsession with customer satisfaction, Hermes will also be focusing on making returns “frictionless”.
The company’s new “Pay and Print In Store” solution will be an integral part of this drive.
Launched last month, the service enables customers to book and pay for deliveries and print off their labels – all at their local myHermes parcel shop. This means customers don’t need to have a printer, computer or internet connection to send a parcel.
The service is now up and running in around 1,500 location in preparation for peak season, and during the course of next year it will be in parcel stores across the 5,000+ network.
