Since I was young I was fascinated by ships, planes, trucks, seaports, and airports. I was always wondering where these ships, planes and trucks came from and where they were going to (Asia, Americas, Africa...). When I was small I already joined my father on 'his' ship (Nedlloyd container vessel) to visit some ports in Europe. I was amazed with all activities that happened at these ports and the size of these vessels. Later I also visited Schiphol Airport (one of Europe's largest airports) and was impressed with all the different planes from the different countries connecting Holland with the world. A hobby to choose was therefore not difficult and joined the sea scouts, giving the opportunity as a kid to go sailing every weekend (during the summer season at least) to make my own journey. I was determined to make the world of transportation and logistics my career and did my MSc in Industrial Engineering & Management Science: logistics. This allowed me to learn more about procurement, materials management and distribution. Since my graduation in 1997 I always have been in the logistics discipline and will probably never leave! Back in 2006 I decided to continue my study for my PhD in business management, where I conducted my research on the application of halal in supply chain management. Halal logistics is a new level of logistics excellence for the halal industry.
In my work I have been travelling the world, to help companies better organising their logistics. Research shows that companies can save 2-25% on their logistics by better organising their logistics operations. My experience in Asia, Europe and the Middle East shows that it is more likely to be a double digit figure than a single digit figure. Companies have been focussing on their core business (manufacturing, trading, branding) and have been optimising components (often only a single component, namely their core business) instead of their entire supply chain.
Through this blog I hope to give you simple tools in identifying the bottlenecks in your logistics operations and how to improve your logistics operations day-by-day towards logistics excellence! But what is logistics excellence?
Logistics Excellence =
1) Short supply chain lead-times
2) Low variation in the supply chain (any variation for that matter, in lead-times, quality, quantity, etc.)
3) Low waste in the supply chain (from the consumer and environment point of view)
Logistics Excellence is playing the role as a conductor in front of the orchestra, recognising the specific qualities of the players in the orchestra (read: supply chain partners) and knowing how to weld these together into a harmonious performance.
To be continued...
