High street retailer Boots has contracted Exel to store and distribute its Christmas giftware lines as part of a six-year deal worth around £40M. The operation is based at a 34,410sq m distribution centre near Worcester which Boots has leased specifically to handle the work. Activity will be concentrated between July and the following January to supply the Christmas demand. It is planned that the Exel site will become the seasonal operation centre for Boots UK and will handle other occasional lines throughout the year.
Mark Langrish, senior category manager at Boots, says: “Christmas is a critical part of our commercial offering and requires an expert third-party logistics provider to manage the supply chain successfully, working with us on a long-term partnership basis to achieve year-on-year improvements in the operation.”
The majority of the products coming into Worcester will arrive from Boot’s UK manufacturing plants and contract suppliers; in addition, 20% will come from the Far East. At peak, about 35,000 pallets will be stored. Exel will organise transport to Boot’s 17 RDCs in the UK and Ireland and to a transshipment point in Lichfield for ‘direct to store’ pallet consolidation.
l Johnson & Johnson Medical (Shanghai) and Johnson & Johnson Medical (China) have signed a new, five-year contract with Exel. It is the first outsourcing project awarded by Johnson & Johnson Medical (Shanghai) and (China).
As part of the contract Exel will manage the storage and inventory of medical devices in its national distribution centre located in Shanghai for Johnson & Johnson Medical Shanghai and China.
