Customer:
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)
Industry:
Government & Heathcare
Solution:
Kitting, storing, and distribution of Covid-19 tests
The UK Government's response to the Covid-19 pandemic was to ensure everyone's safety and limit the virus' spread, by providing a National Testing Programme accessible to anyone in the UK as soon as possible. This was a huge challenge and required many supply chain players to come together.
The National Testing Programme's success is due to a genuine partnership between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and its wide range of suppliers to make it happen in such a short timeframe.
The programme's depended on a fast response and a robust supply chain to ensure tests could be delivered across the UK on a tight schedule to end-users.
Kuehne+Nagel, is a named supplier on the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) Logistics and Warehousing Framework, and was well positioned to support setting up this complex programme.
Entire Business Unit set-up in 11 days to support National Testing Programme
Kuehne+Nagel worked together with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to ensure a speedy response while meeting their requirements and specifications: setting up a whole business unit in just 11 days, dedicated to supporting the National Testing Programme, providing kitting, storage, and onward distribution while procuring maximum value for the public sector.
Before starting the kits' manual assembly, the first challenge was to design a 'usable' test kit out of the various components provided and ensure appropriate temperature-controlled warehouse storage for the final test kits.
In June 2020, Kuehne+Nagel began to assemble, store, and distribute Covid testing kits to all care homes in the UK, hospitals, regional test sites, universities, schools and institutions such as prisons.
Kuehne+Nagel is ready to assist with the UK Governments "testing for all" promise
Kuehne+Nagel focused on ensuring the volume of kits available met the Government's and the DHSC mass testing strategy. Within six months, we moved from 100,000 kits assembled per day to 550,000.
The lab testing capability increased, helping bring more capacity for testing online – Kuehne+Nagel supported with rapid production and distribution using our extensive road network.
Within seven months, Kuehne+Nagel improved their delivery time from a 72 hour turnaround down to a 24 hour turnaround time from order to dispatch, to meet growing demand and Customer expectations. This was all accomplished while still hitting the volumes required and working with the ongoing logistics' complexity.
To date Kuehne+Nagel has helped deliver more than 50 million test kits, and continues to take pride in delivering for both our Customer and the nation.