Last Mile: 6 Month Review

The last 6 months has seen lots of further development within the business. 

The relocation of the HGV department across to Opus Park has proved to be an excellent choice allowing the department to work seamlessly alongside our other operations.  Seeing the added value of all the arms of the business work hand in hand has been pleasing to see. The customer base continues to work with a familiar group of customers, GXO, RHD, NDT and some general haulage. Our biggest challenge has proved to be the finer details around utilisation.  We continue to explore new opportunities to try and address this challenge as we feel this is one of the few missing pieces to the jigsaw when delivering our expectations of the department around running compliant, and returning positive commercials.

2-Man continues to be a consistent performer with RHD and NDT, relationships remaining strong. New developments allowing our driver pool to flex in times of high volume has proved to be an invaluable addition to help deal with one of the biggest challenges the department faces of fluctuating volume.

Warehousing, as tends to happen, this has seen some movement around customers coming, and customers going.  This has left the warehouse currently underutilised.  With ongoing discussions around new business, we hope to have these gaps plugged in the coming weeks/months. Some of the infrastructure changes we have seen happening over the last 6 months have really made a statement of intent, the introduction of Avensure to act as a consultant to the business with everything Health & Safety has underpinned the culture we want in our business, supported by continuous reviews of all our polices and procedures and new initiatives are being introduced to reinforce the correct culture within. Consultant, Colin Pratt, (DGSA) has had his services extended for another year, he will continue to support all areas of Hazardous goods and, in addition, will review our Comah position on a monthly basis.

Parking, this area of the business continues to offer 3rd party parking at our HQ site, Haverton Hill.  We currently have a nearly fully utilised site which continues to see the same customers using the facility for a combination of parking and outbase functions.

This period saw the Training Centre change ownership, and be removed from the services offered by the business, by doing so, this allows the business to fully focus on 2-Man, Warehousing, HGV and Parking. The ownership hasn't gone too far, with Craig Wilson (Shareholder) taking on the day to day running, all the added value benefits will still apply for when Last Mile require the use of the service.

Strategic Partners

As part of the development piece with everything associated to Last Mile a conscious decision has been made to enrol various professional services that don't exist to become part of our Strategic Partners. The concept of the Strategic Partners is they are in position to support everyone to be able to go about their daily jobs in the confidence that if certain challenges come about that can't be dealt with then we have a network of expertise to advise and action where necessary. Some of the Strategic Partners new additions include:

• Avensure (Human Resources) this function has already made a huge impact in our business from underpinning processes and polices, to the every day support on offer when faced with all our HR situations. 
• Avensure (Health & Safety) this function covers an area of the business that requires attention to detail when we tackle everything that makes the working environment safe and compliant. Avensure have already carried out a full audit of all our supporting documentation, reviewed company polices and processes which have all been approved and signed off, and will also be audited at regular intervals going forward. On top of this important work Avensure will also offer professional advice on a day to day basis in a business that is forever evolving and requiring this readily available input.
• Podium, have just recently been appointed to undertake all of our Sales & Marketing/ This will see them doing such activities as, SEO development work with our website, running PPC campaigns with Google Ads, LinkedIn and developing the overall brand awareness.

In our last 6-Month Review it was discussed the challenges we faced with insurance hikes based on our previous years claims history.  We are pleased to report that along with a robust process that has been rolled out, coupled with the engagement of staff and drivers, we have seen our claims running at a fraction of what they were YTD on last year's policy.  This is testament to a group effort that has created a 360 degrees turnaround in an area that, at one point, proposed a risk to our business due to the danger we entered into a category of been uninsurable.

SV22

We see further changes to the structure, an up to date version SV22 can be seen below, this is supported by a strong team leading the operations across all shifts. With the emergence of some now key players, namely, Gareth and Joe, this has only added real strength to the team with our already established members.

The Next 6-Months

The previous 6 months allows us to align with the current objectives around the four areas that make up the fundamentals of the business going forward: 

Utilisation:

1. Warehousing @ 60%

2. 2-Man @ 80% 

3. HGV @ 70% 

4 Parking @ 90% 

Across the business we are currently on average 75% utilised

Risk Management

2. Policies and Processes 'Don't Walk By' campaign to be given real focus 

3. Results and outcomes to continue to be measured and reported

People

1. Development

2. Pathways

3. Training 

4. Support 

5. Engagement

Last Mile Logistic Solutions Limited 

1. Profile

2. Branding 

3. Service offering 

4. Become the leading SME 3PL in our local area 

5. Champion the Business!

If you have any questions, get in touch with our logistics solutions team. Our normal office hours are 9am - 5pm Monday - Friday.