In this interview with Nigel Molloy, Distribution Director at Wolseley Group, we explore how his team keeps a national warehouse running at near-constant uptime during peak season, where the biggest technology gaps still exist in the sector, and how AI could transform warehouse efficiency. Nigel also shares his approach to engaging teams through change and his vision for designing a truly future-ready distribution centre.
As Distribution Director at Wolseley, how do you prepare your national warehouse network for peak periods in trade distribution – particularly in terms of systems resilience, hardware uptime, and wireless coverage across large-footprint sites?
“At Wolseley we have an inhouse IT team which covers all areas of technology introduction and support, within that wider team we have a dedicated Warehousing & Logistics team who are working proactively to monitor the performance of our various systems and hardware resources required in our operations to ensure that they are running in an optimal way.
This dedicated team provides both in and out of hours support given our 24/5 running and have the ability to escalate to other teams within the IT area should the need arise.
This proactive and reactive support includes our wireless networking which is key to our Warehouse Management System controlled operations.”
The role of IT in warehouse operations has changed dramatically in recent years. Where do you think the biggest knowledge gaps still exist across the distribution sector when it comes to implementing or scaling technology effectively?
“I think the biggest knowledge gaps exist around how we get the best use of the emerging technologies which are advancing at an ever-increasing pace; as an example of this I believe that the use of AI Analytics will be a game changer in helping us to understand what trends and learnings we can take from the millions of rows of data that are generated from our warehouse management systems.
The new technologies will be able to quickly highlight trends and bottlenecks in a user-friendly way vs. the manual nature of ‘looking for answers’ that we have today.”
Looking ahead, which technology investments are top of mind for Wolseley’s distribution infrastructure over the next 2–5 years – and how do you see these impacting fulfilment speed, accuracy, or cost-efficiency?
“We have previously developed our approach and the technologies that we are using so that we can capture as many systemic transactions as we can around the physical operations that we do, linked to that we have basic reporting that can help us to understand trends and give some insight into where we may have process inefficiencies.
These changes and reporting abilities have allowed us to improve our efficiencies and reduce the cost to serve across or logistics operations.
Looking ahead I would like to invest in AI Analytics for our warehousing so that we can get a greater understanding of the huge amounts of transactional data that we capture and hopefully have the AI show us answers where we didn’t even know the question to ask.
I would also like to invest more in AI to help support more around compliance for safety in our operations and behaviours that will lead to improved performance e.g. CCTV recognition of Manual Handling Equipment usage and driver legalities.”
With Wolseley operating such a complex and time-sensitive logistics chain, what are the most persistent challenges you face from a connectivity or systems reliability point of view – and how do you mitigate them?
“All in all, we have a stable system and hardware setup within our operations; we spent over a year developing and refining our Warehouse Management Systems, using a dedicated internal team, prior to the first site going live and we continued to use that team to support each go-live afterwards.
Our biggest area of ongoing risk would be around system or hardware upgrades but we also approach those in a controlled way making sure that full UAT and regression testing is completed prior to anything affecting the production systems.
That supported by our dedicated IT support teams helps to ensure that our system uptimes are almost 100%.”
If you had the opportunity to design a new flagship distribution centre from the ground up, what key technologies or design principles would you prioritise to futureproof operations?
“I would ensure that we fully investigate the latest automation technologies available as they are constantly developing and becoming more cost effective.
We have completed a lot of reviews around these technologies in the past and operated sites with very high levels of automation, but there is always a balance to be struck between the cost of the technology (implementation and ongoing) and the operational throughput that it will be cost effective to handle.
In terms of product storage, I would ensure that we can get the maximum cube fill but with the flexibility or storage media to handle various sizes and shapes of products as we distribute anything from a tap washer to a large industrial boiler.
This flexibility would also need to account for the fact that our industry is changing massively with the move to Renewable technologies vs. the legacy carbon fuelled products we have historically handled.
Operational volume and performance visibility would also be a key consideration in the new design so that we could display Key information in the right places of the operation to allow volume and performance indicators to be readily seen.”
DTE has seen it all – 500+ warehouse sites, 400 million sq. ft. of Wi-Fi design, 3,000+ infrastructure orders in the past year, and a flawless safety record. We build wireless networks that never drop, hardware that doesn’t quit, and AI tools that turn data into actions. If uptime, speed, and accuracy matter, we’re the partner you need. Get in touch to see how we can support you.
