South Midlands mail centre:XMAS Planned to perfection

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Planning for Christmas pressure, which the team at South Midlands mail centre started early in 2014, really paid off as colleagues successfully managed the busiest period the site has ever seen.

The team started to plan early to ensure everyone was ready for the challenge of being a fully migrated plant. Serving four postcode areas, the mail centre is now the largest in the country.

Bob Brady, plant manager said: ‘It was a challenging few weeks and the operational plan came together really well. The team worked extremely hard to deliver a successful Christmas for our customers and having a robust operational plan underpinned this.

‘In my first Christmas at the plant, I am delighted with how things went.’

Planning for success

Anne Redmond, Large Letter manager at the mail centre, said: ‘The planning started early in the year. Having such a structured plan in place made a massive difference.’

Arrivals Manager Jon Lowney added: ‘The plan allowed us to have a really clear line of sight, meaning that we were in full control at all times and were able to react accordingly during the peak times’.

Operations Lead Craig Abbs also thought that things went smoothly over Christmas, commenting that colleagues worked in ‘a much smarter and leaner way’. He said: ‘Keeping the mail flowing with minimal storage prevented bottlenecks and space constraints. All shifts processed each other’s mail and there was a real sense of team working which has helped us to have a really successful Christmas.’

Fundraising

Morale was also kept high with a number of festive fundraising activities, including a ‘Christmas jumper day’ which raised £1,200 for our Charity of the Year, the Stroke Association.

A ‘name the bear’ competition raised £300 for the RNIB, while £942, collected through football scratch-cards, was used to purchase items for a local food bank.