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CUSTOMER

The international shipping company DHL Express – a division of Deutsche Post DHL – is the world’s largest logistics provider, offering freight transportation, warehousing, distribution and supply chain solutions to customers in over 220 countries.

The company first arrived in the Czech Republic in 1990.

DHL has three international “gateway” logistics centres in the Czech Republic that send and receive shipments from overseas. These are located in Brno, Ostrava and at P3 Prague D8 park, from which DHL serves Prague and the surrounding Bohemia region. The company processes around 60% of the three million packages that it handles each year in the Czech Republic from our park.

 

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WHY P3?

“The project at P3 Prague D8 is very important for our future business growth. In P3 we found an innovative business partner that was focused on high performance on the development of a similar sized logistics facility at Bratislava Airport and this approach was critical for our business. During both projects, the teams from Deutsche Post DHL and P3 built up a great relationship of mutual trust and we look forward to further work with P3”.

-Thomas Berliner
Deutsche Post Corporate Real Estate CEE

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THE STORY OF PARCEL DELIVERY

In 2014, DHL had a distribution hub at Prague airport and two other branches around the Czech capital. In order to increase capacity and improve customer service it decided to consolidate the three locations into one new state-of-the-art facility designed to house its bespoke, automated parcel sorting and handling systems.

The high-tech line sorts packages by weight and barcode, directing 70% directly to distribution and the rest to the customs team (which is located right next to the sorting line). Just 2% of the packages require human intervention, increasing both capacity and efficiency.

As a result, DHL can now offer an 8:30am to 6:00pm delivery window in Prague and has also introduced timed deliveries. DHL invested €2.6 million in the building, the company’s largest ever operational investment in the Czech Republic. Over 70% of this was spent on technology, IT and security.

 

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  • P3’s Prague D8 park is located 10 minutes from the Prague city centre, just off Exit 1 (Zdiby) of the D8 Prague-Dresden-Berlin highway. The park benefits from excellent visibility from the highway, as well as public transport access via buses 370 and 372, which connect the park with the metro line C station at Kobylisy.

  • The park comprises 132,000 m2 in total of built space in six buildings.

  • Construction of this park commenced in February 2004.

  • Other customers at P3 Prague D8 park include VF Corporation, PMP PAL, InTime Spedice, Blažek, Puma and Latecoere.

  • DHL Express’s 3,500 m2 Build-to-Suit logistics hub comprises:

    • 2,700 m2 of warehousing
    • 800 m2 of offices
  • Construction start on site:

    • September 2013
  • Building handed over to DHL:

    • April 2014
  • 120 people work in the building

 

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THE SOLUTION

DHL Express needed access to the company’s central Europe hub in Leipzig. The company also wanted links across the Prague region and with its warehouses at Olomouc, Plzeň and Žilina. Our park offered easy access to the D8 motorway and the airport. We already had a good relationship with the Deutsche Post corporate real estate team – having built a DHL distribution hub in Bratislava - and used that insight and experience in Prague. A larger facility was originally planned for the site, but working with DP to we created a new streamlined design that matched DHL’s needs and managed the entire process, including securing new permits for the revised layout, to deliver the building on time. An atypical building layout features three pick-up and delivery “fingers” or docks with more bays, which can handle more parcels – around 1.8 million shipments per year. DHL needed a long period of time to install its huge automated sorting system, which was key to improving efficiency. However, we were able to make parts of the building available to DHL prior to completion so that they could make an early start.