SDI Group, the global integrator of automated material handling systems, has secured a three year contract to maintain all three of George at Asda’s UK automated distribution centres.
The £2 million contract signed in May this year sees SDI Group take on responsibility for the 24/7 maintenance of all materials handling equipment across the three George at Asda sites of Lymedale, Brackmills, and Washington – including the maintenance of systems originally installed by other automated systems providers.
“We wanted to ensure maximum reliability, uptime and throughput across all our three distribution facilities for our clothing and accessories ranges and that meant introducing greater continuity for maintenance process at Lymedale, Brackmills and Washington,” said Ant Everett, head of network development for Asda Distribution. “As a retail business our focus is not engineering. Outsourcing maintenance to SDI Group – experts in warehouse automation – allows us to focus on our core business confident in the knowledge that our automated fulfilment operations will be run to close-on 100 per cent efficiency levels.”
The decision to hand responsibility for the maintenance of the three sites to SDI Group is founded upon a long working relationship between the two companies and follows a ten year phased development programme at the Lymedale site where SDI Group has integrated a series of automated systems, encompassing a four-storey mezzanine, an automated hanging garment system, a high-speed tilt tray sorter, a stacker crane solution and boom conveyors. As the company’s flagship site, Lymedale receives, processes and delivers the full range of George clothing and accessories to some 170 stores and is responsible for picking and dispatching all stock for the brand’s expanding e-commerce channel.
Since 2007 SDI Group has managed the maintenance of the Lymedale distribution centre on an outsourced basis, with ten engineers and an on-site manager. Maintenance at the Brackmills facility was run as an in-house operation and Washington’s was previously outsourced to another company. Following the implementation of a single maintenance contract, staff at Brackmills and Washington has been Tuped over to SDI Group.
“We are very proud of what we have achieved for George at Asda at Lymedale over the years and are delighted that George at Asda has the confidence in our engineering capabilities to assign us the task of managing the maintenance of all three sites,” said Hayden Smith, General Manager, Operational Services Europe at SDI Group.
SDI Group Ltd
Amanda Dowsett, Marketing Manager
Tel: 01455 330 010
Email: amandadowsett@sdigroup.com
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