Inside the Rollout: 600+ Lidl Installations
Embedded project management supporting more than 600 Lidl installations across the UK.
Working inside the programme
Wanzl brought us into its project delivery team to provide subcontracted project management support for a major nationwide programme of works for Lidl.
This wasn’t a case of receiving a brief, completing one isolated package of work and handing it back. We worked within Wanzl’s own ecosystem, alongside its senior project managers and internal teams, supporting the programme on a daily basis for a full year.
The rollout covered more than 600 installations of self-checkout and entrance gate systems across the UK. With hundreds of individual stores moving through different stages at the same time, the challenge was keeping the programme organised, visible and moving in the right sequence.
Our involvement covered planning and scheduling from the outset. We helped coordinate store programmes, installation dates and upcoming activity so the wider team had a clear view of what was happening and when.
Call-off planning formed an important part of that process. Upcoming sites had to be understood in advance so the equipment, resources and installation requirements could be coordinated against the programme rather than dealt with at the last minute.
We also supported ongoing project reporting, giving Wanzl’s senior project managers clear visibility of progress across the rollout and helping maintain an accurate picture of completed installations, upcoming stores and work still requiring coordination.
The purpose of our role was simple: add experienced project resource without adding another layer of complexity.
Keeping hundreds of installations moving
An installation date on a programme is only useful if everything behind it is ready.
Our involvement therefore extended beyond scheduling into the practical coordination required to get each stage of the rollout to site.
We supported warehouse management and call-off planning, helping connect the installation schedule with the equipment and resources required for upcoming stores. As the programme progressed, this meant maintaining a clear understanding of what was needed, when it was needed and how that related to the wider sequence of works.
Installation management was another core part of our role. We worked alongside Wanzl’s internal resources to help coordinate activity around individual store installations and keep the programme progressing across hundreds of locations.
That required constant communication between the different parts of the operation. Planning, warehouse activity, call-offs, reporting and installation could not be treated as separate tasks. Each one affected the next.
For twelve months, we operated as an extension of Wanzl’s own project team, working within its processes rather than sitting outside them. That meant understanding how the business operated, coordinating with its internal resources and taking ownership of the day-to-day workload assigned to us.
Across the programme, more than 600 Lidl self-checkout and entrance gate installations were delivered throughout the UK.
The scale is impressive, but the part we’re most proud of is the consistency required behind it. A programme of this size isn’t kept moving by one big decision. It depends on hundreds of smaller decisions being made, communicated and followed through properly every day.
That’s where this type of subcontracted project support works best. When a client needs additional resource, we can integrate into an existing team, work within its systems and help manage the practical detail behind a major rollout without asking the client to build an entirely separate management structure around us.
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