Seminars Emphasise Importance of Supply Chain Strategy
The speakers at the Australian and New Zealand seminars were (from l-r) Tony Buckley, Glen Borg and Adreas Oy.
More than 1000 logistics professionals from Australia, New Zealand and SE Asia attended Dematic’s recent 2020 Supply Chain Vision seminars.
More than 1000 logistics professionals from Australia, New Zealand and SE Asia attended Dematic’s recent 2020 Supply Chain Vision seminars.
Titled Core Strategies, Tactics and Trade-Offs for a Sustainable Supply Chain Future, the popular annual seminar series explored the impact of strategy on the supply chain.
Speakers, including three of Dematic’s global logistics experts and, via a series of video interviews, a handful of Dematic customers from around the world shared their insights.
“Every company strives for competitive advantage… an edge that sets them apart from their competition, creates loyalty and generates profits,” said Keynote Speaker, Glen Borg, General Manager Logistics Systems, Dematic.
“Some companies seek to gain the edge by lowering costs or providing faster more reliable delivery. But, on their own, these are not enough,” he said.
Quoting the famous Dr Michael Porter, a leading international authority on competitive strategy, Mr Borg said: “A company can only outperform rivals if it can establish a difference that it can preserve. Competitive strategy means deliberately choosing a different set or mix of activities to deliver a unique mix of value.”
“How does your supply chain help your strategy, help you cope with your environment and, therefore, help make tradeoffs and decisions,” challenged Mr Borg.
He then called on a number of Dematic customers to share their insights on cost reduction strategies such as automation, inventory reduction, centralisation and regionalisation, and the impact of such strategies on customer service, future flexibility and adaptability.
A good Australian example of where a company has strategically aligned its supply chain to support its brand positioning is Woolworths. The company’s Logistics Program Office Manager, Antony Castaldi, discussed the importance of DC location relative to stores, to support the retailer’s positioning as, ‘The Fresh Food People.’
He also discussed how Woolworths has changed its order delivery techniques to ensure store friendly deliveries. Examples of initiatives in this area include shelf-ready trays and the implementation of roll cages, which can be taken direct from the back of the truck to replenish shelf locations in a single operation.
David Timson, Head of Technical Services at UK retailer Sainsbury said: “Customers want products fresher, which puts more pressure on our supply chain to handle products quicker. The time from the field to the plate is constantly reducing. Planning and environmental health restrictions limit the time we can deliver to stores, condensing our delivery timeframe window and creating additional pressure to move goods through warehouses quicker,” he said.
Discussing how Sainsbury has met the service and cost challenges, Mr Timson said automation was the key solution for enhanced efficiency and cost improvements.
Another company that has chosen automation to deliver service and cost advantages is Ratiopharm, one of Europe’s leading generic pharmaceutical distributors.
Company representative, Henning Bosch, said: “In generics we have to differentiate ourselves from our competitors and the key differentiators are product availability and service quality.
“We went for an automated solution to reduce operating costs as well as enabling us to provide superior service to customers. In upcoming years, more global players will enter the generics market in Europe, so price pressure will increase and a perfect service will become even more important,” he said.
Lars Petersen Krejberg, Director of Logistics, Carlsberg outlined how the Danish brewer is combating fierce competition in the beer and soft drink markets.
“We need to go further down the automation path. There is no other way to deal with the demand to cut costs than to get the manual operations out of our supply chain in as many areas as possible,” he said.
The final Dematic customer to share their insights was Hardy Eimke, Director Central Logistics from leading German dairy products distributor Theo Muller Group.
“We are in a very challenging market with competition on one side and strong and big customers on the other,” said Mr Eimke. Muller’s strategy to compete successfully in such a competitive market was to differentiate by offering highly innovative products and increasing its service levels wherever possible.
“To do so you need to have a very efficient warehouse operation interlinked with transport and distribution, supported by sophisticated IT solutions providing whatever information you require at any time and place,” he said. However, you can never become complacent. “To decrease our service level in logistics would threaten our position in the market, and this means we are looking today for the solution tomorrow,” he said.
The keynote presentation was followed by two breakout sessions on Distribution Logistics and Manufacturing Logistics.
The Distribution Logistics session for Retailers and Wholesalers was presented by Dematic’s Global Head of Distribution Industry Solutions, Tony Buckley.
Concurrent to Tony’s presentation, Andreas Oy, the Global Head of Manufacturing Logistics, addressed issues specific to food and beverage and other fast moving consumer goods manufacturers.
The speakers for the three seminars in SE Asia were:
- Brad Welsman, Vice President, Dematic Asia Pacific
- Roland Fritzsche, Global Sector Head, Manufacturing Logistics, Dematic
- Steve Baker, Global Sector Head, Distribution Logistics, Dematic.
For more information, please contact Glen Borg:
glen.borg@dematic.com
Ph. 61 (0) 419 217 143 |
