The problem

An e-commerce warehouse was finding that many of their carts and trollies were being damaged after extensive use – impacting their productivity – and others had to be completely written off at considerable cost.

The solution

After visiting their operation, Southgate’s Technical Services team developed a site-specific planned maintenance programme. This meant cart and trolley servicing (including things like replacing casters and cart frame repair), maintenance, and renovation, delivered on a scheduled basis on the customer site.

The whole operation is now managed through the Southgate ServAgree app so Southgate can easily organise and record ad hoc repairs, and the customer can check and track the progress of scheduled maintenance. The app provides the customer with reports to their specifications, showing full details of every repair and service, and itemising the parts used.

The customer also now benefits from an asset register that can be updated as new equipment is added. This rich data enables them to plan, track, and audit assets and prepare for inspections.

The result

The benefits have been substantial. Not only did we help our customer to reduce the impact of non-operational equipment, but the planned maintenance program delivered the additional benefit of extending the life of their equipment – in turn, increasing their ROI and protecting their CapEx investment. After 7 months of working with the customer, we were able to start forecasting their spare parts requirements and were able to advise them on how to improve their carts before they invested in new ones, by undertaking root cause analysis backed up with data captured on our ServAgree app. In cost terms, the savings are substantial. The cost of replacing just 25 damaged carts would be approximately £9,000 whereas the cost of repairing these is around £1,200. This year we will repair over 145,000 carts saving our customers more than £40m in CapEx spend. We are now also able to offer ‘hot work’ repairs to our customer through dedicated repair clinics across Europe which allow us to weld, fabricate and undertake assembly works when it is unsafe to do it at our customer sites.

There is one important additional benefit for both the customer and the wider community. By continually extending the life of their existing equipment and repurposing parts, rather than replacing it, our customers are using fewer resources – reducing their carbon footprint and helping to reduce unnecessary waste. That’s a win for everyone.

“We’re making really substantial savings in CapEx – we’ve estimated it at over £40 million. Using the Southgate Technical Services team we’ve extended equipment life by years, substantially improving our ROI and this which also has helped us with our sustainability targets.”