Case study: Breezemount UK

Home delivery company Breezemount UK is on the crest of a wave after securing a major contract with international home products company Ikea.

The contract went live on December 1 last year and the win led to the appointment of Vicki Vallance as commercial fleet manager, an overnight 140% increase in the company’s delivery fleet and the decision to introduce Jaama’s multi-award-winning online Key2 Vehicle Management system.

“It has been a baptism of fire,” admits Vallance, who had been with the company just two weeks when she met Jaama to discuss how Key2 would replace Breezemount’s manual fleet administration system.

A system of spreadsheets and wall charts has been replaced by Key2, with employees at the company’s Daventry headquarters and 19 operational delivery locations having instant access to every facet of vehicle, driver and journey data.

Fleet industry professional Vallance had experience of Key2 from previous jobs at Newtown Vehicle Rentals, where she was a member of the IT project team, and at Solihull Council, where she was involved in its implementation.

She says: “I even used the Jaama system in my presentation at my interview. I have used other fleet IT systems but nothing else compares.

“At Breezemount we looked at other systems but we opted for Key2 because of our multi-user/multi-site requirement and the need to access live data and not yesterday’s information.

“Breezemount realised that without technology and changes to its processes, it would have been totally impossible to manage the fleet effectively and efficiently, particularly with regard to legislative compliance without technology.”

Breezemount UK started life in the mid-1990s with a fleet of just four vehicles. It has expanded to become the UK and Ireland’s leading express two-man home delivery provider.

Overnight, Breezemount UK saw its then fleet of 70 vehicles, ranging from company cars to 7.5-tonne commercial vehicles with a core fleet of 3.5-tonne panel and Luton vans, expand to 165 vehicles on securing the Ikea business, delivering goods bought by consumers both in stores and online.

Today, the fleet encompasses 77 light commercial vehicles, 78 7.5 and 12-tonne trucks and 10 company cars. Since December, Breezemount has made 50,000-60,000 home deliveries a month compared with an average of around 10,000 a month in 2010.

Rapid expansion of the fleet to meet contract demands has seen it rely on spot rental, with some commercial vehicles joining the fleet for just a day or two, while other units have been operational for months and sometimes a year or two.

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