Encouraged by further economic growth and a continuously growing population in the GCC, large food/ non-food retailers plan to build new and larger warehousing and distribution facilities. As part of their logistics design and planning work they, of course, strive to increase productivity, to become faster and more responsive, and to capture the effects of economies of scale – compared to their current set-up. Because a new facility will need to have a life span of 15+ years, however, quite some flexibility needs to be “designed-in” to allow operations processes and logistics structures to adapt to changing market requirements and regulatory conditions. Therefore, ADI was asked by MAF Carrefour to review the plans for their facility accordingly.
Retail distribution centres for GCC cannot be a copy-paste of their “sisters” in other regions. This is due to the specific role of the importers in the UAE, the need for cross-border shipments with individual customs/inspection regimes, and an e-Commerce market that still is in its infancy stage. Therefore, ADI reviewed the logistics processes and plans for the new facility based on its expertise and experience stemming from several years of involvement in the local logistics market – while applying scenarios that cover changes reasonably to be expected within the next decade.
Based on its analysis ADI recommend several changes to the facility design. This included basic operational items, such as to allow future upgrades to an increased level of mechanization. But it also included fundamental changes to the facility’s structure that need to be implemented from start in order to remain flexible towards upcoming changes – such as to allow for implementation of electronic customs bonding, and to enable omni-channel logistics operations that will be required with an increased relevance of e-Commerce and with a decreased relevance of importer’s logistics operations.
