Right products, right place, right time

Who are you?

Speedy Hire plc is a FTSE-listed equipment rental and support services provider based throughout the UK, Ireland and the Middle East. We serve customers across multiple industries, including; construction, infrastructure, industrial, manufacturing, facilities management, retail, leisure, events, and local trade.

What was your challenge?

An excellent customer experience is at the core of Speedy’s business. That means always having the right products available whenever and wherever our customers need them.

This is no simple task for Speedy, we have 3,500 products across 200 depots in the UK and products can vary from a simple cut-off saw to lighting towers, resulting in a complex network that needs to be managed. Forecasting demand doesn’t just mean a one-off sale but the likely duration of hire and expected product condition on its return. Not only that, Speedy commits itself to a four-hour delivery and collection promise.

How does Speedy Hire use Peak?

Speedy’s asset and logistics teams use Peak’s Order Allocation and Replenishment applications to optimize their network.

It’s a delicate balancing act between maximizing the utilization of products and maintaining availability for customers, and it’s only possible with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).

Peak’s applications provide our teams with a demand forecast for each product. They then recommend how products should be distributed across the depot network, when to replenish them, and by how much.

What’s the upshot?

Using Peak’s AI applications, powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Intel, Speedy’s teams can predict the optimum level of assets to hold at the product and depot level, reducing unnecessary stockpiling by redistributing them around the network to where they’re most likely to be needed. At a time when warehousing costs are skyrocketing, holding optimum inventory levels has an additional cost-saving benefit.

Speedy has transformed its daily decision-making with AI, building confidence in supply throughout its entire network. Ultimately, Speedy can increase utilization, facilitating an improved Return on Capital Employed (ROCE).

Alongside Peak’s platform and applications, our services add value to Speedy’s operations. With expertise from data science to AI consulting, Peak connects technical and business users to drive Speedy’s business goals through the power of AI. A testament to this, Peak recently won Speedy’s Support Services Supplier of the Year award.

1 hour vs 1 week:

It now takes one hour, instead of over a week, to decide where products should go in the network to drive the most sales.

4% inventory savings with 8% more demand:

On average, the team makes a 4% saving on inventory whilst satisfying 8% more demand across the network each month.