DB Schenker has embarked on a plan to open more than 30 Shared Logistics Centers (SLC) worldwide in the next five years, representing additional investment in approximately 500,000 square meters of warehouse space.

The facilities will be located in strategic locations close to transportation hubs and in geographic markets where customer demand is foreseen in the medium to long term.

In addition to consolidation of existing sites, and investments in facilities to support customer-specific operations, the SLC program will provide additional capacity in these selected markets as a basis for ongoing growth and development of the target industries - Automotive, Consumer, Electronics, Healthcare and Industrial sectors. The initiative commenced in 2012, with eight shared logistics centers already in various stages of operation or commissioning, including sites in USA, China, the Netherlands, in Sweden, Turkey, South Africa and Dubai.

With our Shared Logistics Centers strategy, we will offer our customers the flexibility to cater for their changing business needs in terms of seasonality and volume fluctuation, room for growth through scalable modern facilities, and to deliver synergies resulting from sharing of resources and assets without sacrificing on service levels, says Rob Walpole, Head of Logistics / Supply Chain Development, DB Schenker. "In many of our chosen locations it gives us the opportunity to integrate our customer's distribution needs through a single service provider, to reduce overall supply chain costs and support market entry into developing markets for clients.