Background
Yodel was formed when the owners of Home Delivery Network (the Barclay Brothers) acquired the UK parcel arm of DHL. Following the purchase of DHL UK, Yodel commenced a two-phase change programme which was aimed at delivering (pardon the pun) millions of pounds of annual savings.
The two brands (HDN and DHL UK) had independently built an infrastructure of Hubs (the vast operational warehouses where parcels are sorted and sent to the local service centres) and a network of service centres (the local depots where the couriers collect the parcels and complete the last mile delivery service). After the two businesses came under the same ownership, the decision was taken to merge the two infrastructures in a 2 phase programme.
Phase 1 of the Change Programme has been covered in a separate case study. This case study covers Phase 2 which was focused on their service centre infrastructure.
