As well as providing our customers with the right materials for any job, we want to ensure the ordering, collection and delivery process is as efficient as possible. David Kilby, Operations Director at Jewson, explains how his team help to keep Britain’s builder’s building.
So, David, tell us a little about your role…
As Operations Director, I’m responsible for maintaining operational excellence across the entire business. That means working with the five Regional Directors within Jewson to provide a safe and enjoyable in-branch experience for our colleagues and, of course, our customers.
I chair the monthly Jewson Management Team (JMT) meetings. This involves coordinating the Operations, Supply Chain and Category teams to make sure our customers get the products they need, when they need them.
I also have responsibility for the specialist services we offer, including the Tool Hire, roofing and timber teams, and through Jewson Sales Director, Andy Murphy, the Housebuilder and Contractor sales teams, and the Regional Sales Centre’s.
What have you been working on recently?
It’s essential for our customers to be able to get the products they need for a job as quickly as possible. For this reason, we’re currently investing heavily in standardising and broadening our range across branches nationwide.
We want to ensure that, even if a product isn’t available in branch, it can be ordered and delivered to the customer in a short space of time, leveraging our network and our sister companies to create competitive advantage. Our new Inventory Management Team are working to improve this process further, and will closely monitor stock levels across all of our branches to keep delivery times down.
Tell us about the new super branches.
The thing that makes our super branches ‘super’ is their size. The bigger the branch, the more products we can fit under one roof, meaning more choice for our customers and more readily available stock. The 76 superbranches service our Regional Sales Centre deliveries, and also provide overflow transport cover for the smaller branches within their clusters.
In a superbranch, there’s also more room to manoeuvre stock in and out of the yard, thanks to their streamlined layout. This means we can stock bulky items and also deliver them to the customer with greater ease.
So, outside of the office, what do you get up?
I’m a big fan of the beautiful game, and have been following Southend United all my life. We’ve not got off to the best of starts this season – but we’ve had a couple of victories this season so far, winning 2-0 against Brighton, and 3-1 last weekend against Millwall. I’m looking forward to seeing some fantastic away game performances over the next few months.
We’re making a cuppa – what gets you ready and raring to go in a morning?
A black coffee normally!
