NFC goes home delivery
Page 5
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
PICKFORDS Removals has set up a new company, Homespeed, to offer a national home delivery service to manufacturers and suppliers of furniture and similar bulky consumer durables.
The new company takes over most of the work previously handled by Pickfords Distribution Service although this will still exist to develop new projects.
Homespeed is intended for furniture and bulky domestic goods over 22.5kg, so most of its vehicles will be doublemanned.
Pickfords says that service levels for this sector of the distribution business are traditionally poor and says that Homespeed aims to make 80 per cent of its deliveries within one working week.
To overcome the problem of making home deliveries during the day it will offer Saturday and evening deliveries as well.
Homespeed has a hub in Nottingham and seven other dedicated depots; none are shared with other Pickfords operations. The vehicle fleet stands at 210 vehicles and 169 trailers and is a mixture of rigids and artics.
This includes 149 new vehicles and 104 new trailers which have been added to the existing Pickfords Distribution Service fleet. All are to be finished in a new white Homespeed livery.
Some of the new Homespeed facilities and management are from SPD, which Pickfords' parent company, the National Freight Consortium, bought earlier this year. The Nottingham hub is an ex-SPD depot and the Homespeed general manager is Alec Duncanson who was previously the Nottingham SPD manager; 470 new jobs have been created.
The Littlewoods mail order business is the first major national customer for Homespeed and all Littlewoods' furniture and bulky lines will be moving through the system.
In addition to home deliveries, Homespeed will also deliver furniture from manufacturer to shop.
The company assesses the home delivery market for furniture and bulky items as worth more than £200m a year.