Davies & Robson helps City Link refine its Line Haul Operations

Following its acquisition by private equity house, Better Capital, parcels firm City Link has brought in Davies & Robson to identify efficiency improvements in the line haul operation between its depots and hubs.

Headed by veteran venture capitalist, Jon Moulton, Better Capital acquired City Link from Rentokil in April 2013 for £1. As part of plans to invest £40 million in the company over the next few years, Better Capital has identified a range of measures to improve the performance of the operation.

One of the key areas of performance improvement is the line haul operation between the depots and the hubs, which is critical to the future efficiency and agility of the whole delivery network. To assist in the process, City Link appointed Davies & Robson to develop a cost model to evaluate the current costs and provide support in structuring the routes and developing sustainable relationships with its line haul contractors.

Davies & Robson established benchmark costs for each line haul route, prepared standard terms and conditions for both core contractors and approved sub-contractors, tendered groups of routes to pre-selected contractors to ensure market competitive rates, negotiated the agreements and completed the contractual documentation.

Davies & Robson’s consultants also worked closely with City Link’s planning team to identify operational efficiencies within the line haul operation to reduce overall cost.

The project was completed on time, quickly delivering significant benefits and the consultancy is now working with City Link to implement improvements to areas of the operation identified as a result of the line haul project.

As with the majority of Davies & Robson projects, the focus is upon sustainable results, and the company has worked closely with the City Link operations team to ensure the project benefits become part of ‘business as usual’.