Network redesign at Northline Logistics
Forty depots, two disagreeing forecasts, and a network resequenced around the hours the depots actually had.
Operations & Performance · Northline Logistics
Where it sat in the method: stage 03, 12 weeks of the 28.
Operations & Performance is stage 03 work. Every engagement opens with the audit whichever stage it lands in, and the roadmap from that audit is what priced this one.
01
The challenge
Two demand forecasts disagreed by enough to change hiring, and neither team could say which was right. Meanwhile the worst-served routes were the ones with the least capacity to report it.
02
The approach
One definition of a shipment, one owner per field, and six weeks measuring depot capacity by hour and skill. The network was then resequenced so the routes with the worst service got capacity first, and the two forecasts became one, because they finally counted the same thing.
03
The result
On-time delivery improved 9.6 percentage points across the network within two quarters, and the disagreement between the forecasts stopped being possible.
+9.6pp
on-time delivery across the network
How it was measured
Measured as the share of consignments delivered inside the promised window, across all forty depots, over the two quarters after the resequencing against the two before. Stated this way because a figure without its method is a claim. Ask us for the workings: we will send them.
01
4 wks
The flows
Every lane, every depot and every empty leg, mapped from twelve months of manifests.
Closes on the true cost per pallet-mile
02
8 wks
The network
Depots consolidated from nine to six, routes rebuilt against the demand map, tested on one region first.
Closes on a signed network and a cutover plan
The engagement, on paper.
The record
ClientNorthline Logistics
SectorLogistics & transport
ServiceOperations & Performance
Year2024
Duration10 weeks
Fee£110–160k, fixed
You leave with 10 weeks
The operation, measured: a baseline your own team can rerun
A redesign the team leads wrote with us
A run-rate improvement, tracked weekly for a year
What Operations & Performance hands over, whichever client bought it. This one is the version Northline Logistics runs now.
“The roadmap came with prices, owners and a first business case our board approved in one sitting.”
Three more, the same sector first.
The service behind itP.02
Operations & Performance
Cost, throughput, quality and service: the operation measured where the work actually happens, then redesigned with the people who do it, to a number agreed before we start.
10 weeks · £110–160k, fixed
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Range and pricing strategy at Ostro Retail Group
+3.4pp
gross margin, twelve months after repricing
Retail & consumer
Agree the number before the work starts.
The audit / four weeks
A.01One figure, agreed in writing before any work
A.02£45–65k, fixed, whatever the audit finds
A.03It prices the stage after it, so nothing is bought blind