British Gas has chosen DHL for a £17m five-year contract to manage the supply chain for installation and maintenance of more than 16 million smart meters for its 12 million customers.
Smart meters are to be rolled out to every home in the UK and British Gas says they are designed to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
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DHL will use a regional network to manage meter assets including smart meters, in-house displays and associated ancillary items from British Gas’ national warehouse to DHL’s national distribution network of collection points.
Rob Morton, supply chain director at British Gas, said: “The flexible regional solution implemented by DHL will enable us to effectively manage the volumes expected across the roll-out period while maintaining exceptional service quality. We are confident that the robust and cost-effective solution proposed by DHL will help kick-start our smart meter roll-out.”
DHL is using a regional model to provide the flexibility required to manage the short- and long-term volume fluctuations expected while use local collection points will minimise the downtime of the team installing the meters and provide a secure means of collecting and depositing materials.
Additionally, DHL’s network will manage returned meters from collection points to the relevant asset owners. DHL will integrate with current British Gas systems to provide real time track and traceability of metering assets at serial level number, at all points throughout the supply chain.
