The 150,000 sq. ft. DHL Express Southern Hub, which supports a network of 47 service centres across the UK, is home to more than 500 employees. Operating 24/7, it has the capacity to process 28,000 items per hour. As well as onsite green energy assets including, and air source heat pumps, the facility includes automated parcel and mail sorting systems and x-ray machines.
The partnership will see DHL move its existing EAM solution IBM Maximo to a new cloud-based version of the software, IBM Maximo Application Suite (MAS). MAS offers a single platform for asset management, monitoring, maintenance, computer vision, safety and reliability, enabling the company to have a 360-degree, real-time view of its asset base, across multiple sites simultaneously if necessary.
IBM Maximo and IBM MAS are used by utilities, logistics and facilities management businesses around the world. The move to the cloud is said to enable increased asset uptime and better first-time-fix rates, improved operational efficiency, digitised work orders and the ability to store data on and offline. The cloud-based system will also help to negate out-dated paper-based processes, helping to remove duplication and reduce human error.
DHL is also upgrading to the latest generation of Peacock Engineering’s Fingertip add-on mobile solution, enabling its team to benefit from improved real-time data capture, flexible work processes and faster work progression. DHL’s maintenance teams will also receive training workshops delivered by Peacock Engineering’s team of experts.
Kevin Dickinson, SDC engineering manager at DHL, said: "The partnership will see us upgrade to a new cloud-based version of IBM Maximo, an EAM solution we have been using for several years. By taking our EAM to the cloud through IBM Maximo Application Suite it will enable us to reduce the impact of maintenance through better planning, speeding up works, improve first time fix rates and enable our operations and maintenance teams to have a better view of our assets.”
Alan Cambridge, CEO of Peacock Engineering added: “The new cloud-based IBM Maximo Application Suite integration will help bring all of DHL’s maintenance and work schedules at its DHL Express Southern Hub together, in a single EAM platform, helping to speed up fixes and ensure the impact of maintenance on operations is minimal.”