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Wilkinson distribution gets effective communication

The High Street variety retailer, Wilkinson, is committed to ensuring that their customers can get whatever product they want, when they want it. Wilkinson offers a large range of products in-store including homeware, furniture and food, sitting alongside a selection of garden and hardware and has extended its business model to allow customers to order online.

After seventy years of trading Wilkinson has continued to embrace challenges and change and has kept the focus on low prices, convenience and outstanding customer service. Today Wilkinson has more than 290 stores and more than four million customer visits per week, and by 2012 its aim is to have more than 500 stores.

The added demand for more of Wilkinsons low-cost product range, which extends to over 40,000 product Unes, led to the opening of Wilkinsons Worksop distribution centre in 1995. This centre sends out goods to all of Wilkinsons Northern England stores and is also home to the fastest sortation system in the UK. In 1997 Wilkinson opened the second distribution centre in Magor Wales, which serves its Welsh and southern stores.

Wilkinson has invested heavily over the course of a successful 20-year partnership with Zycomm, a distributor of two-way radio and management software. Zycomm has supplied Wilkinson with multi channel two-way radios plus support. The support package ensures the highest quality of service and includes radio communication consultancy, technical advice and support for repairs, installations and maintenance.

Most recently, the vendor's two-way radio expertise is also supporting speedy sortation across two 100-acre distribution sites. Zycomm has supplied and fitted permanent mobile vehicle radios into Wilkinsons shunt fleet. The radios have been fitted in order to improve lines of communication amongst the drivers and dispatchers. The mobile vehicle radios boost the productivity levels of the fleet by increasing awareness of staff deployment in order to reduce downtime. The installation of the radios into the vehicles has reduced the number of batteries required and the time spent changing and charging batteries. The mobile vehicle radios ensure that the fleet is in constant communication with the dispatchers, helping to improve operational safety.

Kevin Coe, senior engineering manager of Wilkinson explained: "Our aim as a company has always been to offer our customers great value and convenience whilst remaining true to our simple, honest, family focused values of passion, teamwork, and thoughtful ambition. The smooth sortation process allows the distribution centres to function in an efficient manner and in turn to ensure that our High Street stores, catalogue and online store can offer our customers the products they want."

The radio communication equipment allows Wilkinson employees to communicate with one another and to dispatch jobs more efficiently -thus reducing the time staff spend travelling between jobs. Over the vast sites it is imperative that staff can have instantaneous communication in order to maximise productivity. The equipment also provides staff with the ability to communicate using the one-to-many radio capability when necessary. The portable handsets support streamlined transport use and ensure that in emergency situations, such as a power failure, staff can still communicate.

Coe also commented on the working relationship with Zycomm. "The 20 year relationship between Wilkinson and Zycomm has been built on the trust established during our longstanding working partnership," he said. "The feedback across the organisation has been positive and as a company we are impressed by the way Zycomm operate. The level of commitment to ensure our radio communication capabilities can offer our organisation a competitive edge has been impressive."

He concluded: "Wilkinson aims to provide great value products and convenience to more customers, and Zycomm understand this goal, Radio communications reduces our costs , as well as downtime , allowing us to operate in a more efficient manner. As well as increasing productivity, radio communication devices make us quicker and smarter when it coures to safety."

Retail Technology
March 2008
www.retailtechnology.co.uk