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Hermes, the home delivery network, has opened a new national hub at Bermuda Park in Nuneaton. The 85,000 sq ft facility is designed to enable Hermes to enhance its service offering with the introduction of a new next-day service and increased parcel tracking capability.
In addition, it will support the development of new home delivery solutions as part of the company’s ongoing growth strategy in the UK and mainland Europe.
The national hub will handle more than 50 million parcels each year, which will be received and sorted for onward delivery to 19 depots across the UK. The facility will also manage returns and receive inbound traffic from continental Europe, as well as becoming the central hub for Hermes’ national trunking operation, supported by an existing Northern hub in Bradford.
An automated sortation system has been installed to enhance productivity and reduce delivery lead times. Two shoe sorters driven by a bespoke warehouse management system will improve the accuracy and quality of the sortation, while providing added flexibility to handle operational peaks.
Five-way camera scanning technology, fitted to each sorter, provides the option to record picture images of all parcels, with a scanning accuracy of 99.6 per cent.
Chief executive Carole Woodhead said: “More than 85 per cent of the UK population can now be reached in a standard drivers working shift, so it enhances our ability to offer fast, flexible and efficient home delivery solutions.”
* The site handles a large proportion of the Hermes’ UK deliveries, and uses Vitronic’s parcel identification and volume-measuring technology to process up to 9,600 items an hour.
The hub distributes parcels to Hermes’ nationwide depot network which serves local couriers.
Parcels arrive at Nuneaton hub in transit vehicles which operators unload using telescopic boom conveyors.
These then transfer items on to one of two infeed conveyors each of which runs through a scanning tunnel before being flowed onto two sorters to be directed to the appropriate loading bays for dispatch.
