Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Supply Chain & Logistics

With a surge in demand for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Hatmill was tasked with supporting the existing pandemic warehouse and then setting up a parallel supply chain network for future inbound products. We also had to make sure that the public purse got value for money. What we achieved, working closely with partners across government, the military, the NHS, supply chain, and logistics, was the establishment of a brand-new supply chain, capable of delivering up to one billion units of PPE a week.

  The UK’s Covid vaccination programme was an incredible success. We were the first country in the world to get vaccinations into arms, saving an estimated 128,000 lives in the first 18 months of the programme. What most people didn’t see is what went on behind the scenes to build a first-of-its-kind national supply and distribution network, from scratch in just a matter of weeks. The new supply chain needed to span seven regions, 29 Integrated Care Systems, 223 NHS trusts and 1500 Primary Care Networks. Led by the NHSE team, and working with the DHSC, NHS logistics, Movianto, the military and a range of other suppliers, Hatmill was central to the success of the vaccination programme. We provided strategic advice about the design, demand planning and delivery of this national priority, which was to be the key that unlocked the pandemic’s grip on the nation. This brand-new supply chain was designed in an extraordinarily short time and deployed in just five weeks. We’re proud Hatmill was on the team central to delivering this phenomenal achievement.

From initial concept through to end of cutover, Hatmill worked to scope, project manage and deliver Greggs new, state-of-the-art £26m Balliol National Distribution Centre. The facility consolidated Greggs’ legacy network of 4 external storage sites into a single, purpose-built national Distribution Centre and is estimated to save 7% of total mileage a year in transport emissions. The automated DC comprises an automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) operating in a lights out hypoxic environment at -20°C across 9 storage levels with an internal height of up to 23m. The new DC also provides a modern office space and welfare facilities for the team operating the automated facility. The Hatmill project including scoping, tendering and then overseeing the workstream leads, automation supplier, principal contractor, building design team, insurers and WMS consultancy, was delivered at the height of the COVID pandemic.

Our client had three diverse brands, each distributing to wholesale, ecommerce and retail stores. We provided a solution that didn’t change for the operator, whoever they were picking and packing for.