The Oxford warehouse has experienced a major infrastructural facelift during the past 12 months. Our services had been compromised during the last peak season of 2007 due to an outdated warehouse design and dysfunctional processes.

Between June and October 2007 ‘Project Phoenix’ was implemented. The Distribution Team made a commitment to rise from the ashes of an old and outdated system and offer our customers not only an improved service but a consistency of service all year round. The project was a great success which was due to careful and thorough planning and preparation.

The warehouse floor was re-designed with most of the major works occurring during weekends to reduce disruption to our current services. It was described as a period of time when 'it was like living in a house whilst renovating at the same time!'. The crew were fantastic and many of their ideas were built into the design and process changes through various communication and improvement workshops.

Key areas of improvement were reduced bottlenecks in our picking and despatch areas and a reduction in double handling via changes to our replenishment and stock receipting processes. We also analysed our stock items and re-positioned 5,000 stock titles to ‘smart’ picking locations to represent their popularity thus allowing us to pick fast moving titles quickly and pass them through to despatch.

The positive changes have created a more functional and happier workplace. The staff now can feel their contribution has a positive affect on the business objectives and our customers’ needs. We now have key performance indicators which all staff live by on a daily basis and are all empowered to achieve the results. 

The team have had a fantastic summer peak season and for the first time in years have been able to enjoy a happy work and life balance!