Summary
With current labour challenges across the sector, Wilko Retail Ltd were facing a team member short fall on the run up to peak Christmas demand in their two distribution centres at Worksop in Nottinghamshire and Magor in Newport.
Our merchandising team identified an opportunity to work collaboratively with Wilko to help support their requirements at a time when merchandising in-store is traditionally quieter, to reduce customer disruption during a key sales period.
Challenges
Distribution centres have lots of new Health and Safety challenges, such as lorry routes and forklift truck movements that the teams were not used to working with.
The team received extensive training beforehand and they were then able to support in a number of roles including picking stock, loading store deliveries, offloading containers and organising recycling and salvage.
Results
The Bluestones One merchandising team were able to support both distribution centres with up to 60 people, around the clock, over a 7-week period to help fulfil their peak demand.
This will now become a successful seasonal collaboration and opportunity for both businesses going forward.
