Logistics provider Tibbett & Britten (T&B) has extended its long-term relationship with Tesco by winning a long-term, multimillion contract to provide central warehousing and distribution services for all of the supermarket chain’s boxed clothing in the UK.
T&B is putting the work through its second newly built Daventry International Distribution Centre, known as Fastway, on the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT) at Crick, where Tibbett also operates the open access railport. The 22,400sq m high-bay DC has been built next to T&B’s 22,000sq m DC, which opened in 1999, and is dedicated exclusively to Tesco. Tibbett expects to create 300 full-time jobs with the new business.
The new DC, says T&B, will help reduce unit costs; allow better service to stores; and release capacity elsewhere in the Tesco non-food distribution network. It will hold more than 6,500 different product lines and handle initial volumes of around 30 million cases a year. The centre features 49 loading/unloading bays and is rail-connected.
T&B says the DC will be conventionally racked and equipped with Tesco’s warehouse management system, which incorporates paperless picking using arm-mounted radio frequency (RF) scanning terminals.
Tesco has 771 UK outlets that carry clothing lines, ranging from some small Express and Metro outlets to the large Extra stores. T&B will manage the trunking of product using a mix of standard and special double-deck trailers into eight Tesco RDCs for the impact on efficiency” arising from the extension of the Working Time Directive (WTD) to transport.
The five-year, £65M contract will see all relevant Matalan employees transfer to Wincanton under the Transfer of Undertakings (TUPE) rules. The vehicles will also transfer to Wincanton, although the livery will remain the same.
Roger Burnley, Matalan’s supply chain director, says: “We have made the decision to outsource the transport operation to Wincanton because we believe it will add significant value to the supply chain. In addition, Wincanton is better placed to manage new transport legislation, such as the Working Time Directive, given their level of expertise in this area.”
The operation is primarily based at Skelmersdale, along with sever outbases.
Wincanton has also been appointed to manage Dairy Crest’s ex-farm milk collection based at Severnside.
