By it’s very nature, this business has busy periods and quiet ones. The beginning and ends of terms is where the whole team storm into action. With deliveries or collections taking place all over the UK as well as International shipments. We are often then asked what we do once term has begun.
Currently
At the moment, the team are assisting UniWiz (our sister company) with University deliveries. Universities tend to go back later than secondary schools, so thankfully the workload is spread across some more time. We are delivering to Universities throughout the UK, with a lot of deliveries heading into London. We also have some being shipped abroad. Plus some boxes remaining in storage with our gap year option.
The operations team are already discussing the next holidays. Easter particularly is already being planned for. With Easter being at a weekend, a lot of schools will be wanting redelivery on one day – Tuesday 23rd April. This means a lot of planning and careful staffing thoughts. More and more of our Schools are hiring out their venues over holiday periods too, so collection and redelivery has to be within a very definite timeframe.
Looking Ahead
Chelsea has meetings coming up with various new schools interested in signing up for our service. It is exciting to have new schools on board and planning for the different challenges each one will raise. Every school is so different in term of needs, school design and timings so each is planned bespoke.
Interviews are underway for our new Operations and Logistics manager.
Feedback and improvements are so important with this business. The team spend a lot of “non-delivery” time looking at what works well and not so well and seeing where improvements can be made. Sometimes this is looking at our suppliers or staff training or better protocols.