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The Launch of The London Consolidation Centre
Tue 21 Mar 2006
Construction Web’s Lloyd Heath attended the launch of The London Construction Consolidation Centre in Southwark. The Centre is a partnership comprising of Bovis Lend Lease, Stanhope, Wilson James, and Transport For London and is part of the freight strategy for London. It should go a long way in addressing London’s freight needs by reducing road freight mileage.
Centre Storage Area
Event Deleagtes
What is a Consolidation Centre? Well Consolidation Centres provide the supply chain management of bulk materials from the supplier to the project. The purpose of these Centres is to serve multiple construction sites. The London Consolidation Centre will serve projects in the London area.
THE PROCESS - FROM SUPPLIER TO CENTRE
Looking at the Heathrow Airport project that used the consolidation centre model, the suppliers have to first:
Book their deliveries at least 24 hours in advance with the Consolidation Centre.
The Centre then confirms the booking with the supplier.
The supplier then delivers to the Centre as agreed.
The Centre checks the relevant paperwork including date and time of delivery.
The Centre then receives the delivery from the supplier and checks for any shortfalls.
The supplier then gets paperwork back and if there are any shortfalls the supplier
rectifies them before delivery is sent out.
The delivery is then sent out to site from the Centre.
FROM CENTRE TO SITE
The Centre prepares the workpack (materials) from the stock.
The Centre updates stock schedule and confirms with the supplier that the workpack
is ready for distribution.
The workpack is then distributed.
The supplier is notified of distribution.
The workpack is received by site.
Site workers assemble workpack.
The Centre therefore acts as a ‘go between’ supplier and project, with strict
administrative procedures in place at every stage to ensure correct delivery of
product.
THE LAUNCH
The event was well attended with some big industry names present. Introductions and the welcome were made by Gary Sullivan the Managing Director of Construction Logistics Services.
Peter Rogers Chairman of The Strategic Forum 2012 Task Group, spoke about the need for the Centre to get the right deliveries in on time as being fundamental. Although he admitted that they needed to develop on the Centre to get more people to come and use it. He added further benefits for the Freight Industry would be, fewer and an increased energy efficient vehicles. He also mentioned that Constructing Excellence would be conducting regular feedback and analysis to see ‘where we are going wrong’.
Peter Hendy Commissioner of Transport to London said that TFL has a real interest on the transport of freight and people. He also revealed that the TFL have invested just under 2 million pounds in the project over a 3 year period. He closed his speech by mentioning that he would like to get Crossrail involved at some stage in the project.
The Unveiling of the Plaque
The Upstairs Lunch Area
The objectives of the London Colidation Centre are:
To Reduce Congestion:
A minimum of 40% reduction of related traffic trips into central London.
Efficiency:
Make sure 97% of goods are delivered correctly to sight at first time, compared
to the construction industry average of 50%.
Employment:
The creative of locally sourced careers for examples drivers and logisticians.
Road Safety Skills and Education:
The creation of a Centre of excellence for vocational training, and professional
learning for all.
Best Practice:
The Centre would provide an operational model for supporting construction projects
of the Olympics and Para Olympic Games in 2012.
In the group answer and question session there was also a key focus on driver security. This would involve driver’s passports and relevant paper work being thoroughly checked before employment.
The aim of the project over the next 2 years is to enhance and increase capacity of the supply process.
