As we edge closer to Peak, we caught up with our Head of UK Operations, Stuart Runchman, to ask him all about J&J’s Peak 2024 preparations and what it’s like to run a complex operation during the busiest time of the year.
You can watch the full video below, and a transcript is just below that.
How We Nail Peak – Transcript
Hi, my name is Stuart Runchman, I’m the Head of Operations at the UK for J&J Global Fulfilment.
Give us the headlines on our Peak planning this year
We’re expecting Peak this year to be probably over 20% up year-on-year compared to last year. We’ve done so much work in the background over the last six months to prepare for Peak, whether that’s through headcounts, dedicated training teams, carrier capacities, IT upgrades, or other similar measures.
There’s been so much going on, everyone’s been involved in it, so we’re expecting an extremely good peak this year.
How are we planning to fulfil higher demand as efficiently as usual?
We’ve strengthened all of our teams, as we do every year, and our temporary agency resource has been upped by about 25% year-on-year. We’re also bringing in training for about 85 people additional for this year.
We’ve been in touch with all of our carriers to ensure that capacities are good. We’ve also had additional collections and later collections on occasion. We’ve worked really, really closely with our clients to obtain accurate forecasting and ensure that we can hit demand when we need to.
How are we helping clients to get the most out of Peak?
So, on top of the forecasting that we mentioned earlier, we’ve also got a dedicated team of office people from our head office coming down to support through Peak. They’re going to be covering around 250 shifts in the FC, which is picking, packing, and dispatching orders. This will help them when they go back upstairs to talk to clients about products, stock placement, orders, and how things work.
We’ve also done some excellent upgrades on our in-house systems throughout the year, so ControlPort™ and CommandPort™ give our clients really, really good additional full visibility of what’s going on with their orders and goods at any point in time. They can go into that and see exactly what’s going on.
How have we ensured readiness from a tech perspective?
We’ve done quite a lot of work in the background of our system this year. One of those has been reducing a load of unnecessary traffic that comes through, so unnecessary big reports and things like that. This has really sped up our systems, enabling us to add our extra kit, which has been really beneficial.
We’ve also done quite a lot of upgrades regarding our kits, PCs, laptops, and all that kind of stuff, so that really helps as well. We’re also going to have a dedicated IT team on the floor in the FC across all of our operating hours just to make sure that any kit that plays up or doesn’t work is either fixed or replaced very quickly.
How are we supporting our team through Peak this year?
We’ve got loads of engagement this year. One of the things we’re doing is extending our speaker system through our FC. At the moment, it’s only over outbound, so that’s going to cover all areas. That’ll be done next week.
We’ve also got loads of activities on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and all through that week with prizes on the hour. The leadership team will come down and give out prizes to the team for top performers and all that kind of stuff, so that should be really engaging, really, really good.
We’ve also got a Christmas dinner that the leadership team will bring in and serve to everybody, so that’ll be really fun. It was good fun last year. Everyone gets involved, and it’s a really good day.
We have a raffle and a lot of stuff as well so on top of that we’ll be having drink stations, hot chocolates and all that kind of stuff so loads of loads of bits going on this year.
What’s it like to run the operation through Peak?
Peak is my favourite time of the year. It’s absolutely amazing, especially here, and I’m not just saying that. Everybody comes together. We have a real good buzz around the place, and everybody gets involved. Like I said, office teams come down, and everybody mixes.
The volume’s there, the demand’s there, but the good thing about us here is that we make it look really, really easy because we do six months of planning upfront. There’s so much work into it. It’s really good fun to do, and I’m really looking forward to it.
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