Europa’s Dartford hub primed for surge in throughput
Europa Worldwide’s managing director Andrew Baxter told Post&Parcel today that the new state-of-the art Dartford “Europa 1hub” is all set to handle a surge in throughput on Monday (3 August), as the company’s plan to consolidate its European road freight comes into full effect. Europa previously operated with two hubs: Dartford for the south and Birmingham for the north. While this model worked well for intra-regional trade, it was not ideal for pan-European business – where nearly everything now goes via the Channel Tunnel (Operation Stack permitting!).
The company therefore decided to close down the hub activities of the Birmingham facility and create a new model whereby all 10 branches across the UK work directly with Dartford.
“This may increase costs for goods moving domestically from the North, but those costs are more than offset by the savings made on the international line haul,” explain Baxter.
The consolidation will not only lower overall costs, added Baxter, but also drive up efficiency and provide a more flexible service for the customer.
With all its cross-Channel throughput consolidated in the Europa 1hub, the company will be able to switch from operating on a twice-weekly basis to a daily schedule.
“This is a core part of the new model,” said Baxter. “When you operate on a daily basis, it is much easier to deal with overflows, because what you don’t ship today, you can ship tomorrow – and the goods will still arrive on time.
“With all the volume in one place, we can send trucks to more European hubs. We will drive down operational costs and see higher payloads.
“And no one else is doing this. Our competitors are still operating with regional hubs and largely with twice-weekly services. This is not only less efficient but creates more complexity – and complexity can lead to errors.
“There are players in the pallet sector who use single hubs, but their hubs are in the Midlands. This is fine for regional or UK business, but not for the European market. If a London customer wants to get his goods to Paris, having to go via Birmingham will mean added time and costs.”
The Europa 1hub features 26,368 square metres of dedicated warehouse and logistics space. Two of the company’s key logistics customers have also joined Europa on the Dartford site.
“When we switch to the 1hub model, we will be all set to handle about 70 trailers every night,” said Baxter. “We are confident that we have plenty of resource in place to make a smooth transition.”
Looking to the future, Baxter said that the set-up will give Europa the flexibility to deal with extra demand. The facility is split between the transport side of the business and warehousing. If there is a surge in demand, Europa will expand the space dedicated to transport and acquire additional facilities for its warehousing business.
