IGD’s 6th Retail Logistics Summit was held yesterday (November 2, 2005) at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster, with the plea for logistics professionals to “get involved and collaborate”.
The event gave a valuable insight into key areas of the retail logistics sector, and focused on collaboration in all areas of supply chain management. The conference gave the opportunity for prominent industry experts to review the sector and also included a short panel discussion, where six speakers briefly discussed what they had learned from the day. Supply chain director of Nestlé UK and ECR co-chair Chris Tyas, comments: “Collaboration between retailers and manufacturers is alive and well, not just in the UK but across Europe.”
Each year the annual IGD conference brings together logistics professionals from all around the UK and this year was no exception. Guest speakers on the day included; IBM UK supply chain & RFID leader Peter Ward, operations director Sainsbury’s Diane Carter, supply chain director of Kraft foods Justin Cook, supply chain director of Woolworths Neil Ashworth, supply chain director of Boots Gavin Chappell, global customer director for Gillette group Europe Colin Peacock and special guest speakers Richard Brasher, board director (commercial & trading) of Tesco and Nick Fry, chief executive officer of BAR Honda F1 Racing. Some interesting speeches of the day included;
- Chris Tyas, who on the tenth anniversary of ECR (Efficient Consumer Response) in Europe and the UK, gave a speech around the subject of “Collaboration for better performance” and gave a round-up of the ECR’s key achievements in the UK over the past year. He felt it vital that: “If you have a view, get involved and contribute.” He goes on to say: “ECR is not a ‘they’ organisation. It is a ‘we’ organisation.”
- Susan Fernley, head of supply chain at the Co-operative Group, who gave a very open and frank account of the troubles the group had faced, in organizing their 19 ambient warehouses into one national distribution centre.
- Neil Ashworth from Woolworths and Stephen Ashton of Gist gave an interesting account of the collaboration process to provide best practice and cross industry earnings.
- Peter Ward from IBM, spoke about the future of RFID and the busy year the technology has experienced.
- Nick Fry of BAR Honda, who professed to not knowing why he was here, ended up giving a very interesting presentation of the importance of an efficient logistics operation in his sport and offered a view from a different and yet surprisingly familiar position.
Host for the evening Steve Barnes, business director for IGD sums up the evening: “If you learn something valuable, collaborate and help. Everyone wants Formula One performance out of their supply chains.”
