With costs tightening, labour stretched and parcel flows growing more unpredictable, operators face a tougher operating landscape than ever – one where long-familiar challenges now collide at the heart of the network.
As part of its shift from an era of scale and growth to an era of sustainability and optimisation, the CEP industry is under pressure from every direction.
For the past decade, the sector has been largely driven by volume growth. The priority was delivering more parcels at a quicker rate and expanding networks, so strategies revolved around building capacity.
But tight margins are precipitating a natural shift, and doing more with existing assets is now the daily reality.
The pressures of the industry are felt most acutely inside the parcel hub, contends the BEUMER Group CEP Outlook 2026 ‘The interconnected challenges’.
Download the report to learn how behind the hub’s key levers.
Weekly and seasonal peaks are no longer exceptional events; rather they’re the recurring stress tests of CEP operations. While weekly peaks compress a few hours, holiday peaks compress entire weeks. For many operators already running near full capacity, that means there is very little slack when volume surges.
Peaks don’t just add parcels, they squeeze time, capacity, space and people all at once. They reveal whether the building design, power supply and system configuration have the elbow room your dashboards imply – or whether headroom exists only in steady-state averages.
That’s why leading operators talk less about increasing their floorspace and more about ‘sweating the assets’ they already have, extracting throughput from existing sites before committing new CAPEX.
Small parcels, such as polybags, flats, and other low-weight items now dominate typical parcel loads. Their sheer volume and handling profile have turned peaks from a pure capacity problem into a flow stability challenge.
Recent peak seasons show that even after adding extra machines, small-parcel surges can still overwhelm plants and processes, causing extended recovery periods.
In today’s mix, smalls are the live test of whether your operating model, labour plan and hub layout match reality.
Most CEP leaders don’t need reminding that labour is tight, specialised staff are hard to find, and wage pressure is real.
Peaks worsen these labour challenges: in quiet periods, staff can be under-utilised; in busy periods they’re stretched, which can result in more errors.
The practical question is how to build elasticity into rosters, roles and automation, so hubs can flex without burning people out or leaving equipment idle.
Location adds another constraint CEPs can’t easily change. Premium urban real estate, gentrification, access restrictions and congestion all make it harder and more expensive to relocate or expand.
This is pushing operators towards modular network design, with smaller, replicable sortation modules, micro-fulfilment outposts that can be added or throttled seasonally, and partnerships with 3PLs to add further elastic capacity and geographic reach, and equipment platforms built for scalable extensions and software-level re-tuning.
Seen separately, capacity, smalls, labour and location each look like a hard, but familiar, problem. Seen together, they form one question: can you keep parcel flow stable when everything tightens at once?
A flow-stable hub is one where:
In unstable conditions, dashboards can overstate resilience. Throughput targets may be a hit on paper, but only with overtime, manual firefighting and prolonged post-peak hangovers.
To learn more about end-to-end flow stability, including diagnostic questions and examples from hub to Last Mile, download the BEUMER Group CEP Outlook 2026 and dive into Chapter 1.
The central argument of the outlook is that flow stability isn’t just a hub KPI, but the foundation for the Dynamic Parcel Networks that CEPs will need next: networks that can re-route, re-balance and re-price in near real time, without losing control of cost or service.
In a world where margins are thin and peaks are relentless, the winners won’t simply be those with the biggest buildings or newest kit, but those with the most stable flow: networks designed around consistent, visible and controllable parcel movement from intake to Last Mile and cross-border.
Explore how flow stability scales from hub decisions to end-to-end network design in the BEUMER Group CEP Outlook 2026 – download the full report now.
