Smiths News case study

Who are Smiths News?   

Smiths News is the UK’s largest wholesaler of newspapers and magazines serving 24,000 retailers from corner shops to supermarkets.  Service and efficiency are at the forefront of Smiths News approach. With a 55% market share, they are the leading player in this very demanding and fastest-moving supply chain. The Smiths News team strives to meet the highest standards and deliver exceptional service 364 days a year.

How did our consultants help?

As part of their commitment to continuous improvement the management team at Smiths News asked Logistics UK Supply Chain Consultancy to review the delivery activities of three sites, review the current productivity and identify any opportunities for further improvement.  The team regularly review the operations and test alternative approaches but felt extra ‘horsepower’ was needed to analyse a large range of improvement ideas.  Logistics UK has the tools and experience to support them.

By developing a digital twin of the vehicles and routes from each site, and using representative costs from the Logistics UK Managers Guide to Distribution Costs, the team were able to route and plan against different criteria including an alternative fleet mix, different operating hours, more varied routes, and daily optimised scheduling.  With the digital baseline and outcomes from each scenario the Smiths team were better able to define the benefits and costs of each idea and, where appropriate, create a change management plan.

Simon Meyer from Smith News said “this was a great project which had to use multiple data sources and complex planning simulations to establish any potential benefits.  A baseline to mirror our operations was created so we could genuinely see the impact of any changes that we were considering.  The extra support provided by the Logistics UK Consultancy team, enabled us to quickly ask and answer a whole range of questions that internally would have taken much longer.”

Paul Wilson from Logistics UK Supply Chain Consultancy added “the team at Smiths News were great to work with. Projects as complex as this always work best when the client team is fully engaged, for a short period of time we were part of the Smiths team and felt very welcome. The Logistics UK Supply Chain Consultancy was created in order to support members with their challenging business issues and targets, we are pleased to be able to help.”

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