This is a corporate award given to the company showing the highest professional standards of warehousing on joining the UKWA.

Toyota-logoTHE FINISHING LINE

Incorporated in 1987, The Finishing Line is established as a leading promotional magazine finisher.

The company works hard to drive as much cost out of its supply chain as possible by focusing heavily on warehousing and logistics and by expanding its warehouse capacity and demonstrating the commercial as well as environmental benefits of having fulfilment and warehouse services under one roof, the company has attracted more and more fulfilment work.

Systems are key to the company’s customer service, and The Finishing Line’s own in-house programmers are able to develop bespoke programmes that deliver fully transparent warehouse management controls for customers.

Because they handle so much of the magazine volume that is finished in the United Kingdom, The Finishing Line is able to consolidate on site and reduce supply chain costs even further.

Green Laneing is what The Finishing Line calls the process of picking and packing finished magazines and loading vehicles for wholesale depots. By sending a vehicle directly into wholesale with the correct amount of different magazines on board the company has been able to cut out a huge amount of transport.

CALSONIC KANSEI

Calsonic Kansei (CK) is a specialist manufacturer of parts for the automotive sector.

In August 2014 the company took the decision to take its warehousing operation in-house and a target date for the warehouse to be operational was set for the 9th December 2014 of that year.

If this target was to be met, CK had just 18 weeks within which to source a building and agree rental terms, develop a layout that suited the operation, develop a new warehouse management system (WMS), plan the parts layout that linked the WMS and MRP system, arrange the TUPE transfer of the third party provider’s staff, develop inbound and outbound freight routes and secure materials handling equipment.

The initial go-live date was a success with a large proportion of inventory and staff moved over the Christmas period – a formidable achievement as every incoming individual box had to be uploaded into CK’s MRP and each item uploaded had to have its part number, serial number and quantity scanned.

In total CK transferredover 6500 pallets and scanned over 100,000 items into the MRP system.

CK’s project team worked closely with the third party provider to develop staged inventory movement plans to ensure that their customers’ supply chains were not adversely affected by the move to the new facility.

The operation has now been fully operational for just over one year and the company is experiencing improved inventory accuracy and stock control, while all inventory is visible in the MRP system.

BULLET EXPRESS LTD

25 years ago Bullet Express started as a courier company with one van.

The company now has over 100 pieces of kit and an annual turnover in excess £10m.

In response to growing demands from clients for storage services, Bullet recently acquired a new warehouse facility that offers seven times the pallet storage capacity of its existing unit and the company’s goal is to be storing over 20,000 pallets by Christmas 2016.

A new international freight forwarding department has recently been launched too and this also providing additional revenue and means Bullet Express can now offer a full logistics package to its clients.

As part of its ongoing expansion, Bullet has taken on two young apprentices who will go through a full six months apprenticeship scheme.

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