In this engaging discussion, industry leaders Steve Carter, Global Director for Technology, Abby Loft from Hyperoptic, and Hamandeep Kaur from Unipart Logistics explore the critical topic of supply chain optimisation in the alt-network industry.
The conversation delves into Hyperoptic’s journey of transforming its supply chain to support rapid growth and improve customer experience.
Gain insights into the challenges faced by Hyperoptic, a fast-growing fibre broadband provider, and the innovative solutions implemented to address their supply chain challenges.
The talk covers key areas in inventory management, warehouse operations, and the use of data and business intelligence tools. It also touches on important industry trends, including sustainability initiatives and the circular economy. Through their discussion, Steve, Abby, and Hamandeep demonstrate how a strategic partnership and focus on fundamentals can lead to significant improvements in supply chain efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Discover how Unipart can help optimise your tech business’ operations and drive growth.
Contact Steve Carter today to explore tailored solutions that can transform your supply chain, ensuring it’s more transparent, adaptable, environmentally responsible, and economically efficient.
Unipart and Hyperoptic at Connected Britain
Transcript:
Steve Carter: So we’re going to change the gears a little bit now and talk about supply chain, and particularly supply chain optimisation in the alt-network industry. I’m really pleased to be joined today by Abby and Hamandeep. Welcome. Listen, before we start, let’s maybe give the guys a brief overview of our companies.
Abby, do you want to start with that please?
Abby Loft: Lovely. Thank you very much, Steve. So just to introduce Hyperoptic for anyone who doesn’t know. So we were founded in 2011 and Donna Toback, who’s our CEO, was one of the co-founders. She’s actually talking here tomorrow. So if you’re here tomorrow, a little plug there for her slot tomorrow morning.
So what do we do? So we provide a full, dedicated fibre infrastructure to homes and businesses around the UK. We’re in 64 different towns and cities. We tend to focus on the high dense urban areas, and we work with property developers, property owners, and partners to, to deliver that gigabit [00:01:00] speed fibre.
We’ve actually passed over 1.73 million homes and we have over 340,000 customers connected to our network. And I would say that customer is a real focus for us. So you can see on the screens, there are our customer promises that are really important to us. And we’re really proud that we’ve won an award this year – the Which award for great value.
Steve Carter: Cool. That’s really cool. Thank you so much, Abby. Haman, maybe coming to you and just a brief overview of Unipart Logistics.
Hamandeep Kaur: Yeah, absolutely. Unipart Logistics specialises in logistics, manufacturing, and supply chain management services across several sectors which are labeled on the presentation, but just to name a few, technology slash telecoms, automotive, defence, aerospace, just to name a few.
Now, within supply chain management specifically, we look at various services within it. So that ranges from your sales and operations planning, a review of your end to end supply chain, and that entails demand forecasting, your inventory management, your stock management, a wide range of services. As part of our proposition, we focus severely on technology.
So how is it that we can embed technological services within our day-to-day, end-to-end supply chains with our customers? So for example, predictive analytics, or asset tracking for field engineers. So that’s something quite a big priority and something I must mention is that 50 year anniversary.
Steve Carter: Excellent. Thanks Haman. One of the important things I think today is that we want to talk through a case study of the optimisation within the supply chain. So by doing that, we’re going to do is do a bit of a Q&A between us all, and hopefully that give you a good idea of what the problems were and how we fix those.
So Abby coming straight to you. First of all, maybe you could just give us an overview in terms of where Hyperoptic were a couple of years ago before you really decided to have a look at your supply chain.
Abby Loft: Yeah, so a few years ago we, all of our warehouse and supply chain we had in house and we had a small unit down in Reading. And that, that supplied everything that we had and we outgrew it effectively.
Our growth that we were seeing in our network build area, so building our own fibre infrastructure network, that was growing really rapidly. Our customer build, so building in inside of blocks of flats and cabling those, that was also on a massive growth trajectory alongside new build and also connecting our customers.
So we’d effectively outgrew it and we needed to optimise and we realised that we needed to completely industrialise that operation to enable us to grow.
Steve Carter: And in order to support your growth and industrialise the operation what were the specific challenges that you really wanted to solve?
Abby Loft: So there were a number of different challenges. Space was the obvious one. We needed to have a much larger space to cope with all of the materials that we needed for the different types of builds. But actually also we had some challenges with our inventory management. So we were having issues with a bill of materials arriving on site and maybe missing really key SKU items.
We might have the wrong item being delivered. And that really gives two main issues. So one of them being engineer truck rolls. So an engineer would have to truck roll multiple times until they got the full kit for the job. And obviously that has a cost element to it. And the secondary element is we couldn’t always complete against our customer promises.
So we weren’t always able to do that job the first time. And customer promises are really important to us.
Steve Carter: And with that customer journey experience, so important to Hyperoptic, what specific steps to do you take to address all those challenges?
Abby Loft: So we realised we needed to speak to someone who had expertise in the area and understood supply chain and could help grow alongside our business needs.
We came into partnership with Unipart, and specifically what we wanted to do is work on a transformational plan. How we could, we had a growth in our business that was projecting really well, we needed the supply chain to go with it. So what we wanted to do was look at our processes, as one thing we needed a larger space, so that would, that was another, but really delve into the pain points that were causing us some problems with missing deliveries or incorrect items.
Steve Carter: Okay, cool. And I guess now coming to you, Haman, in speaking with Abby and the Hyperoptic team what were the innovations and solutions that we were, bringing forward at the time?
Hamandeep Kaur: So at the time, we brought in a range of innovations. So the first one is business intelligence tool. Now, if you look at a network build, one of the key things for Hyperoptic and other alt-nets is looking at the point of where it starts and the point at where it ends. There’s several data inputs that are put in place to get to that final percentage.
And there’s loads of bottlenecks within it. And part of that we have an OTIF measure, which is on time and full. Were we able to deliver to the engineers on time, in full, all the products to prevent an impact to build? So business intelligence tool allowed Hyperoptic and us to be able to manage Unipart’s operation to ensure that we were not creating those bottlenecks, we were always ahead of the game in that way.
And also it allows Hyperoptic to have that confidence that they can see on a day to day basis, what our data and analytics looks like.
But it didn’t just end there. We also did a lot of innovation with reverse logistics. We embedded waste management services, which directly impacted the recycling range, I’ll definitely talk about later, but also returns management, that was also a service that was added. And cable cutting, so, we onboarded a cable cutter to ensure that rather than having engineers contributing to their non-value add time by cutting on the field, we were cutting prior, because we knew exactly how much is required for the build and that was sent out. So engineers were going in and they already had to cut cable.
And finally, we’re also still progressing with that. So we’re still looking at newer innovations. So now we’re talking about refurbishment of certain products.
Steve Carter: And thinking about the circular economy and from that perspective, Unipart Logistics is a big company with a lot of history.
We’ve got some really innovative solutions going on with people like Sky, for example. Were you able to bring any of those examples to Hyperoptic?
Hamandeep Kaur: Absolutely. So a bit of context to everyone here. In 2004, we started our partnership with Sky. And they had a massive project, which was Sky Ocean Rescue.
So we, so there were loads of goals within this Sky Ocean Rescue. And one of them was eliminating single use plastics. So we onboarded onto this project, and we were able to eliminate 312 tons worth of single use plastic, just as an example. So definitely that was something that we wanted to embed into the Hyperoptic contract.
So one of the main things we did was onboarded segregated waste, so allowed the entry of segregated waste. Improved the recycling rate from about 0 to 1 percent to 70 to 80%. And we’re constantly striving to get better at that, but it doesn’t quite end there.
So we are really focusing on newer technologies as well. And we are talking to Hyperoptic and our other alternate customers around a tool called Eco insights, which manages energy and carbon data. So an example is we have got it implemented across one of our sites and there’s various sensors and you have a bit of a four week period. And after that four week period, you start to spot trends. And we’ve been able to identify just in one manufacturing site, £46,000 worth of saving if we just did energy a little bit different.
Steve Carter: Thanks. It’s an ongoing process all the time, right? And the progress has been made. It’s been really outstanding. Abby, coming back to you there seems to be a number of key areas that Unipart delivered for you, was there anything from standout innovation?
Abby Loft: I think there are a couple of areas, and this might seem a relatively small thing, but actually focusing on the basics.
It’s all great to have a snazzy new system perhaps or a new solution for something. But in reality, if your end-to-end process needs fixing, then that’s what you should be focusing on. I think Unipart really broke that down, end-to-end as Haman mentioned. And we were able to identify where we had data input errors, we had governance problems, we’re missing certain bits of information in different areas that cause dispatch perhaps to deliver something to the wrong address, or not get there on the right time.
So we really locked down those data inputs, we put the governance measures in place, and we put in a proof of delivery. So you guys helped us put that proof of delivery in place, which really helped us to exponentially increase our right time delivery.
So the OTIF measure that Haman mentioned, absolutely. We see that happening in the field. And I think the other area and Haman mentioned the returns and the benefits that’s given us on the recycling, but the returns and the inventory management solutions that we’ve had put in place to ensure that our stock levels are well managed.
So we know exactly what’s in the field at any one time. If we want to return it, we have a returns process we can, so we can manage the amount of capital that’s sat in the field versus what could be used back in the warehouse and dispatched to a job that we actually need it on. And also keep our min and max stock levels to the right place.
A lot of that may sound really obvious, but in reality, getting back to basics and fixing basic processes sometimes is fundamental to being successful.
Steve Carter: I guess the litmus test is, two, three years down the line, did you achieve what you hoped to?
Abby Loft: I don’t know if there’s a drum roll there, Steve, but and it’d be a bit disappointing if I said no, right?
Steve Carter: Yeah, you could just drop the mic and walk off, but hopefully not .
Abby Loft: So no, we ha we do have a fully functioning, very reliable supply chain, I’m pleased to report. And I think, whilst that’s been said, we are always pushing the bar. So as Haman mentioned, there’s constantly things that we’re working on to have a continuous improvement in this particular field.
That’s really important for us as we continue to grow and grow in different areas. I would also say that in the past two to three years, it’s really developed into a proper partnership between Unipart and Hyperoptic. And I think that’s quite fundamental to having a continuous improvement journey, is having that as a partnership relationship.
So thank you.
Steve Carter: Yeah, very much and Haman, how about from your perspective, were the results, what you were what they, you hope for as well. And were there any aha moments along the way?
Hamandeep Kaur: There were loads of aha moments. Yeah, there really were. But I guess [00:11:00] to mainly focus on some of the brilliant work we did do with Hyperoptic, I have to give a shout out to Unipart consulting.
You can learn more about that at our store at one nine nine, a little bit of promotion there.
Steve Carter: That’s an important point. We’re just there at one nine nine, just to the side here. Very short walk, if you want some refreshments, and learn about supply chain.
Hamandeep Kaur: So one of the greatest achievements we had was looking at Hyperoptic’s end-to-end supply chain, but from a different lens to the relationship we have.
So we had other individuals, other consultants who supported, and they looked at the end-to-end supply chain, they focused on performance, people, processes, and had a look at a way to optimise their supply chain. So some of the things that, we did was reviewing their sales and operations planning which included demand forecasting and reviewing that process. Also adding a new governance structure.
For Unipart Consultancy, a big focus was materials available to engineers. Are there any root causes that are causing issues to directly to engineers and how do we get to the bottom of it so there’s minimal impact to engineers? And finally, including new measures such as availability to promise.
But I would say that we have built, it’s been a bit of a roller coaster, but we have built a really strong partnership and we’re looking forward to doing all the more interesting and interesting work alongside Hyperoptic now as you’re, as you evolve in your strategy and the changing market.
Steve Carter: Yeah. Thank you, Haman. And I think you touched on an important topic around scope three missions as well, an area which will only continue to get focus from all of us and certainly towards our 2030 and 2040 targets, right? That’s a huge commitment we’re making, but it requires a lot of effort. Certainly this morning, I had a video interview, and one of the questions I received this morning was very much around, do you think we’re doing enough?
And my view is, actually, we’re doing some things right. And I think, we’ve just had a UK government of just given the go ahead for nine offshore wind farms to be licensed out, which I think is fantastic. Last year, 2023 was the first year we did electricity being produced 51 percent by non non fossil fuels, which I think’s awesome.
That’s great, but I do think, we need to take an agnostic approach, both politically and from a country perspective and try and figure out really what the long term plans are for 10 years, 25 years and 50 years. So I think that’s really important. Listen, it’s been really interesting talking to you both today.
Thank you for your time. And I hope you enjoy talking about supply chain for five minutes. Thank you very much.