These are busy months for businesses in e-commerce. Consumers often do their Saint Nicholas and Christmas shopping online and increasingly wait until the last moment. Ingram Micro Commerce & Fulfillment Solutions (formerly Docdata). During the peak season, the logistics service provider of parties such as bol.com and de Bijenkorf processes up to 500,000 items a day. Despite the peak rush, it is 'business as usual' for the company. "Everything is in the right preparations."
In January, Ingram Micro already starts preparing for the peak months of October, November and December. Evaluation plays a big role in this, explains Hein van Rijckevorsel, Director Operations at Ingram Micro: "What did we notice last peak? What are the lessons learned? Which processes should we optimise and which education and training courses will we deploy? Together with our customers, we look at the forecast for the coming season. On the basis of this, we determine how many people we put against it and how many flex workers we need."
The search for staff
Around the holidays, Ingram Micro puts 2,500 extra seasonal workers to work at its distribution centres in Tilburg and Waalwijk. Finding those people is a challenge, especially with 11,000 vacancies in Brabant. "More and more companies are fishing in an ever-shrinking pond. We have to work hard to find the right people. That includes making people who are not yet top performers into top performers. Sometimes that is someone who has not worked for a long time, but whom we still see potential in," says Van Rijckevorsel. Besides people from the region, Ingram Micro also deploys staff from southern European or
Eastern European countries in. Caroline van der Plas, Facility Manager at Ingram Micro: "To attract enough people, we do our best to be as attractive as possible as an employer. People should enjoy working with us, even if they only work there for a short time. That's why we make sure everyone goes through our onboarding system, each team has a regular contact person, we have a safety and security team, there is plenty of opportunity for breaks and the temporary employment agencies bring people to and from their temporary home location."
Temporary employment agencies are arranging temporary housing for employees who do not live in the region. "We want our staff to have good accommodation when they work for us. We demand a lot from them, then you should not put them all in a loft. However, the region does not have enough facilities, so we now have to move to places like Turnhout (Belgium) and Cromvoirt. As these places are a bit further away, we arrange transport to and from our distribution centres."
'The peak is getting shorter and more erratic every year'
Finding and onboarding staff is the biggest stumbling block leading up to the peak. During the peak, the bottleneck is in the erratic order book. "The peak gets shorter and more erratic every year. People have become so used to same-dayand next-day delivery that they expect the same around the holidays. As a result, consumers order later," Van Rijckevorsel explains. "Fortunately, our customers often come up with smart commercial campaigns themselves so that consumers don't all order at the last minute and peak volumes are spread out a bit more. This is how we keep it more manageable and work towards full partnership in the logistics chain."
Seminar 'The stress around the holidays'
Despite the expected rush, Van der Plas and Van Rijckevorsel are confident that orders will be ready on time. Van der Plas: "In recent years, we have kept the service level good. We know the business we are dealing with and have started preparations on time." The two even make time during trade fair Logistica to give a seminar on the stress around the holidays. In the seminar, Van der Plas and Van Rijckevorsel will talk about preparations leading up to the peak season. "Interesting for logistics people who are in fine distribution. How do you deal with a dynamic market, in which the customer demands more and more?", says Van der Plas. "We started small ourselves. If you see where we came from and where we are now, we have developed quite a bit. Anyone who wants to learn from our experiences is most welcome."
This year's Logistica trade fair will take place from 28 to 30 November at the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht. Besides a large range of exhibitors, Logistica also offers an extensive content programme with conferences, seminars, demonstrations and informative tours. Visit the seminar 'The stress around the holidays' by Caroline van der Plas and Hein van Rijckevorsel on 29 November at 15:30. Want to be assured of a place? Then register here.
