DHL Supply Chain has extended its partnership with Henkel, which has seen the FMCG company move its retail operation to the new COMAH facility, Manton Wood, in North Nottinghamshire.
Henkel, the business behind leading brands including Schwarzkopf, has made the transition with DHL as part of its purposeful growth strategy, to create competitive advantage through innovation, sustainability and digitalisation.
Henkel works with DHL Supply Chain across EMEA, APAC and the Americas and is currently working on 59 digitisation and 79 sustainability projects globally.
Jim Hartshorne, MD retail, consumer and Ireland, DHL Supply Chain, said: “Henkel is a perfect fit for Manton Wood; it’s a progressive company with big ambitions in terms of sustainability and digitalisation, which is precisely what this site has been designed for. This facility really is best in class in terms of environmental features and automation, so we’re pleased to see such a valued customer benefiting from it.”
Added Tanja Gilb, director Supply Chain Western Europe at Henkel Beauty Care: “We have a long-standing relationship with DHL and we’re delighted that they have the infrastructure and services we need to take our business forward in line with our purposeful growth strategy. The Manton Wood site supports our plans to cut carbon emissions from our supply chain and has the automation technology to ensure we can cost effectively scale."
DHL will store on average 7,500 pallets and manage the despatch of approximately 140 million units/cases and 6,000 orders a year, across 300 SKUs.
With a BREEAM rating of ‘Very Good’, the new Manton Wood site features rainwater harvesting, solar panels for heating water, and timed and motion detection LED lights. Its air-conditioning system runs on water rather than gas, while extensive digital record keeping boosts efficiency and paper saving. The strategic location of the site and DHL’s shared transport network will also create a significant reduction in road miles and therefore carbon emissions.
The Manton Wood site incorporates an Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS), as well as advanced cranes designed to be 20% more energy efficient than the norm. The automation will handle approximately 75% of overall site volume.
Robotic Process Automation is used extensively for stock processes, removing the need for colleagues to produce repetitive reports or pull data manually from the system. This directly creates lists for automated picking, which takes stock to the co-packing area. Meanwhile, wrapping robots improve productivity and use less material.
Additional automation plans will further enhance the Henkel operation, including robot arms for pallet and product movement and AGVs to improve pallet picking safety. These deployments are scheduled for later in 2022 and 2023.
In addition to the building’s environmental features, the site is also operating one of the UK’s first all-electric shunt vehicles, capable of recharging during shift changeovers for continuous operation.
