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COMPANY FILE
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Wolseley is the world’s leading distributor
of heating and plumbing products to the professional
market and a leading supplier of building materials.
Headquartered near Reading in the
UK, it operates in 28 countries across Europe and North
America. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange
and is among the top 100 companies in the FTSE 100 index.
The overall strategy of the Wolseley
Group is to build a fully international business and
to achieve on average double-digit growth each year,
while continuing to invest in the business for future
growth. Half of this growth is expected to be organic
and half from acquisitions. The organic growth comes
from opening new branches, expanding the product range
and customer base, and moving into new markets.
Wolseley is also focused on leadership
development, sourcing, supply chain and business improvement.
These key areas form the bedrock of the group’s plans
for improvement and expansion. Within the group, outstanding
companies transfer and share ideas and best-practice
solutions across international borders, to the benefit
of customers in their home markets.
The range of products and services
on offer is very varied, and this diversity is key to
Wolseley’s success. The business is built on brands
which are well-known in their local marketplaces. Many
competitors are focused solely on one country; Wolseley
believes its competitive advantage comes from distributing
a diverse range of products across a wide geographical
area..
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Q: HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO IMPLEMENT A WMS IN A NEW LOCATION?
A: Our distribution centres, across both continents, can
range from 50,000 sq ft to 800,000 sq ft and we categorise
them based on their operation and the services they deliver
rather than their size. Currently the HighJump solution is
integrated to three different automated retrieval systems
across the Italy, UK and US facilities.
The system is very adaptable so that we can configure each
warehouse according to its exact needs and the skill levels
available.
Where little onsite expertise exists, it can be set up very
simply and we still get many benefits from it. For larger
locations, where there are more resources and expertise available,
it can be more sophisticated to get the maximum efficiency
and benefit from its operation.
The first site within a company can take six to eight months
to install.
You have to initially identify the project team and support
people to do the implementation, then there is the knowledge
transfer and integration to the host system.
Once the first site is completed and everything is in place,
then subsequent sites can usually be installed within 90 days.
Training is currently conducted at the continental level,
although it is co-ordinated with the local training team.
We tend to do two phases: the project team, support team and
super users – which can range from 5 to 20 people; then end
user training – which, depending on the operation, can be
as small as 10 or as large as 180 people.
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Conspectus 2008
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Copyright © 2008
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