Published by
Published on
May 20, 2026
.png)
This case study was authored by Sequoia Partnership, a strategic Optilogic partner specializing in last-mile and supply chain network design.
A national retail operation distributes ambient, chilled, frozen and milk product across hundreds of UK stores from a network of GXO-operated depots.
Annual last-mile cost of £42.0m — driven by 137 trucks at peak, daily delivery windows, and a fleet not matched to drop sizes.
The peak-week network covers 183,000 miles, 4,800 driving hours and over 10,000 hours of unused truck time — significant headroom if routing, frequency and fleet are designed together.
Question: how much cost can be removed without service impact, and which levers matter most?
Each lever was modelled independently against the partially-optimized base case (£40.7m) to quantify its contribution. Six categories, fifteen scenarios.
Savings vs the partially-optimized base case (£40.7m). Levers shown in isolation — they are not additive.
Reduced delivery frequency is the single largest in-year lever — clustering stores cuts deliveries 23% with no drop in service.
Stacked, the transformation programme delivers £14.6m of annual saving — far more than the sum of the largest individual lever, because depot redesign and frequency changes compound.
Removing milk (–£5.3m) was tested but excluded — the cost of the alternative is unknown.
What is in the programme:
Peak-week operational impact
01. Frequency and footprint dominate
Reducing delivery frequency (£7.7m) and redesigning the depot footprint (£3.9m) deliver more than three times the saving of routing optimization alone.
02. A digital twin makes trade-offs explicit
Optilogic was validated to within 0.2% of actual cost, giving the team confidence to test levers — including those that increased some metrics — and stack only the ones that compound.
03. Operational feasibility is the gate
Removing all delivery windows would save £10.8m but is not realistic. The programme keeps safety, regulatory and trading-hour constraints intact.
Sequoia is a 40 year old, specialist supply chain consultancy with deep expertise in network modelling, using advanced optimization and simulation tools to design resilient, cost‑effective distribution networks for clients. The team has delivered network strategy projects for a wide range of organisations, from fast‑growing brands to major multinationals, turning complex data into clear, evidence‑based decisions that are practical to implement.
This case study was authored by Sequoia Partnership, a strategic Optilogic partner specializing in last-mile and supply chain network design.
A national retail operation distributes ambient, chilled, frozen and milk product across hundreds of UK stores from a network of GXO-operated depots.
Annual last-mile cost of £42.0m — driven by 137 trucks at peak, daily delivery windows, and a fleet not matched to drop sizes.
The peak-week network covers 183,000 miles, 4,800 driving hours and over 10,000 hours of unused truck time — significant headroom if routing, frequency and fleet are designed together.
Question: how much cost can be removed without service impact, and which levers matter most?
Each lever was modelled independently against the partially-optimized base case (£40.7m) to quantify its contribution. Six categories, fifteen scenarios.
Savings vs the partially-optimized base case (£40.7m). Levers shown in isolation — they are not additive.
Reduced delivery frequency is the single largest in-year lever — clustering stores cuts deliveries 23% with no drop in service.
Stacked, the transformation programme delivers £14.6m of annual saving — far more than the sum of the largest individual lever, because depot redesign and frequency changes compound.
Removing milk (–£5.3m) was tested but excluded — the cost of the alternative is unknown.
What is in the programme:
Peak-week operational impact
01. Frequency and footprint dominate
Reducing delivery frequency (£7.7m) and redesigning the depot footprint (£3.9m) deliver more than three times the saving of routing optimization alone.
02. A digital twin makes trade-offs explicit
Optilogic was validated to within 0.2% of actual cost, giving the team confidence to test levers — including those that increased some metrics — and stack only the ones that compound.
03. Operational feasibility is the gate
Removing all delivery windows would save £10.8m but is not realistic. The programme keeps safety, regulatory and trading-hour constraints intact.
Sequoia is a 40 year old, specialist supply chain consultancy with deep expertise in network modelling, using advanced optimization and simulation tools to design resilient, cost‑effective distribution networks for clients. The team has delivered network strategy projects for a wide range of organisations, from fast‑growing brands to major multinationals, turning complex data into clear, evidence‑based decisions that are practical to implement.
Fill out the form to unlock the full content
.jpg)
