Contract Logistics — OPS Logistics

Contract Logistics

A warehouse is easy to lease and hard to run.

Anyone can rent a building and buy racking. What costs money is everything after that — the shift you cannot staff in December, the stock count that does not reconcile, the returns pallet nobody has looked at since March. That is the part we take.

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Dedicated Shared On-site Value-added services Returns

01 — Site anatomy

Where the cost actually sits

Storage is the cheapest square metre in a building. Almost all of the cost, and nearly all of the error, happens in the zones either side of it.

Zone 01

Goods in

Unload, count, check against the ASN, record damage.

Zone 02

Bulk storage

Pallet racking, located by velocity. The largest area and the smallest share of the cost.

Zone 03

Value-add

Kitting, labelling, assembly.

Zone 04

Pick face

Where labour cost is won or lost. Fast movers sit closest to despatch.

Zone 05

Pack

Cartonisation and documentation.

Zone 06

Returns & reverse flow

Inspection, grading, restock or disposal. The zone most operations under-size.

Zone 07

Despatch

Load build, carrier allocation, proof of despatch.

Navy — dock-facing zones Dashed — highest labour density Schematic, not to scale

OPS Logistics contract logistics facility

02 — Models

Three ways to structure it

The right one depends almost entirely on how seasonal you are and how much of the process is genuinely specific to your product.

Model 01

Dedicated

Your own space and your own team, operating only your work. Control and specificity, at a fixed cost that does not fall when your volume does.

SpaceExclusive to you
LabourTrained on your process only
SystemsOurs, or integrated with yours
CostLargely fixed
Best whenVolume is steady and the process is unusual

Model 02

Shared

Space and labour shared across several customers. You stop paying for capacity you are not using, and stop scrambling for it at peak.

SpaceMulti-user, flexed by volume
LabourPooled across the site
SystemsOurs, with your data segregated
CostLargely variable
Best whenDemand is seasonal or still growing

Model 03

On-site

We run the operation inside your building, with your lease and your racking. You keep the asset and hand over the management of it.

SpaceYours, operated by us
LabourOurs, on your site
SystemsWhichever you already run
CostManagement fee plus labour
Best whenThe building works and the operation does not

03 — Implementation

What the first ninety days look like

Most failed 3PL transitions fail in week one, not week thirty. The work below front-loads the parts that are cheap to get right early and expensive to fix once stock is on the floor.

Phase

Week 0

Week 4

Week 8

Week 12

Phase 01

Data & profiling

Order and SKU profile

Phase 02

Design & layout

Slotting, labour model

Phase 03

Systems integration

Interfaces, test, reconcile

Phase 04

Recruit & train

Staff, induct, dry run

Phase 05

Stock transfer

Move, count, reconcile

Phase 06

Go live & stabilise

Hypercare

This is a typical shape, not a commitment. A single-site transfer with clean data runs shorter; a multi-site move with a system migration runs considerably longer. Your implementation plan carries real dates, agreed before anything moves.

04 — Reporting

What gets measured, and what it means

Definitions matter more than targets. Two providers quoting the same accuracy figure are frequently measuring two different things — so here is exactly what we count.

Pick accuracy

Lines picked correctly as a share of lines picked. Measured per operator, not averaged across the building, because an average hides the person who needs retraining.

Weekly

Inventory accuracy

System quantity against counted quantity, by location. Driven by continuous cycle counting rather than an annual count that shuts the site.

Rolling

On-time despatch

Orders released to the carrier inside the agreed cut-off. Measured at handover to carrier, which is the last point we control.

Daily

Dock-to-stock time

Elapsed time from vehicle arrival to stock being available to pick. The measure that tells you whether goods-in is actually keeping up.

Daily

Returns turnaround

Time from receipt of a return to it being graded and either restocked or dispositioned. Where working capital quietly disappears.

Weekly

Damage & shrinkage

Units written off in our custody, split by cause. Reported whether or not you ask, including the ones that are our fault.

Monthly

05 — Running it

The disciplines that separate a good site from a cheap one

None of this is exotic. It is simply done consistently, on days when it would be easier not to.

Slotting reviewed, not set once Demand moves. A pick face optimised eighteen months ago is now costing you steps on every order.
Peak planned in the quiet months Recruitment and training for November happen in September, not in November.
Counted continuously Cycle counting by velocity band, so discrepancies surface in days rather than at year end.
Your data written back to you Stock and order status pushed into your systems, not held in a portal you have to remember to check.
One named site manager A person, reachable, who knows your account. Escalation should not mean explaining it again.

Get started

Send us twelve months of order data.

Not a brief. Order lines, SKU profile and your peak week are enough for us to model the space, the labour and the cost properly — and to tell you honestly if your volumes do not yet justify outsourcing at all.

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