By Ian Reynolds-Young
Pictured: Connect MD Steve Garner
The growth of Connect Vending in recent years, the company has acknowledged, led to certain ‘growing pains’ in the business, particularly when it came to delivering spare parts to field-based engineers and by August 2013, the company decided ‘something must be done’.
‘We felt we had to review our repair and maintenance supply chain arrangements’, said Andy Chilvers, Connect’s Operations Manager. ‘Traditionally, we always ordered parts to be delivered to our Oxford base, and our maintenance and repair engineers picked them up from there. However, as we expanded, we had to take on engineers who lived further afield. The consequence of this was that journey distances increased year-on-year, so much so that it was beginning to impair the efficiency of our operations.’
The search for a solution became a priority at Connect and that’s how the company discovered a recently launched service from Parcel Holders. The two companies put their heads together…
The service works by having consignments sent to pick up, drop off points called PUDO’s. PUDO’s are all local shops, located near field engineers’ homes. The service isn’t tied in with any particular carrier and when the consignment arrives, the shop staff sign the proof of delivery requested by the delivery company. The Parcel Holders system then automatically texts and or e-mails the field service engineer and informs them that the parts are ready for collection.
‘When we joined, Parcel Holders had over 100 PUDO’s nationally, but none were close enough to our engineers’, Andy said. ‘So, within two weeks, Parcel Holders recruited four new PUDO’s specifically for us.’
‘Drop Shipping Direct’ as it’s called, transformed the Connect’s service department supply chain
‘Our field engineers now expect to get the part they need by the next day, which means that we’re able to get machines repaired an average two days sooner.’ Steve Garner
‘Once the new PUDO’s had taken a couple of deliveries and the engineers understood how it worked, the service started running smoothly’, Connect MD Steve Garner told PV. ‘Our field engineers no longer need to travel back to base and the service has paid for itself four times over just through fuel savings alone. Having said that, the most significant benefit has been the ability to send parts direct from suppliers. This feature has revolutionised our service department and we now have no need to hold inventory at our Head Office in Oxford . It is just as fast, if not faster to get parts sent straight from our suppliers to PUDO’s, a service only currently achievable through Parcel Holders. Our field engineers can now often expect to get the part they need by the next day, which means that we are able to get machines repaired an average two days sooner. This has not only increased our revenue but is also a major plus for our client relations as we are able to predict with confidence when machines will be fixed.’
‘This feature has revolutionised our service department and we now have no need to hold inventory at our Head Office in Oxford.’ Steve Garner
Even before including increases in revenue generated by getting their machines serviceable sooner, Connect is seeing a dramatic ROI, based on saved labour hours and fuel alone.
‘We’ve been using Parcel Holders for just over a year’, Steve said, ‘and we estimate that we’ve saved 20,204 miles of travel, 376 hours of labour and 3,608 litres of fuel. On top of that, we’ve reduced our CO2 emissions by 10 tonnes’, all of which has delighted Parcel Holders’ MD Ed Fraser.
‘As well as a great company to work with, I am glad to see that Connect Vending is achieving such levels of ROI and efficiency savings by using our service’, Ed said. ‘It’s very positive to know that economies come with demonstrable reductions in the company’s carbon footprint.’
