SPECIAL OCT ‘21 EDITION
Industry Excellence Award High Commendations Bruce Drayton
Dean Neville
Bruce has been a stalwart of the Supply Chain industry for over 35 years, designing and delivering innovative automated and robotic solutions to ‘turbocharge’ distribution centre performance. His influence has spanned many industry sectors and facilitated the ongoing success of some of Australia’s industry leading organisations. Starting in design with Dexion, Bruce moved into Supply Chain consulting with Symonds Henderson before starting his own design business, DCL Solutions. DCL Solutions was acquired by BPS Global in 2021 to ensure Bruce’s many skills were harnessed for the benefit of its customers.
Dean started in the industry in the 1980’s, helping out his mum’s freight forwarding business while studying at university. This sparked an interest in global freight forwarding, supply chain management and customer success, leading to overseas tenures and additional studies in Switzerland, UK, Hong Kong and Singapore.
In leading BPS Global Australia’s robotics and automation, Bruce performs different critical functions, including consulting on concept design and integration of material handling solutions into newly built facilities. In every project he is involved in, Bruce delivers above expectations, improving existing facilities to maximise efficiency and drive profit – he is at the forefront of strategic planning, quality control, contract negotiations and financial reviews for clients. Leading BPS’ team in project engineering and integration supervision, Bruce possesses tremendous team-building and motivational skills, with a passion for supply chain and logistics which rubs off on those around him. Over the course of his career, Bruce has accumulated a vast industry network, building lasting relationships with clients, system suppliers, senior management and official governing bodies. Placing an onus on ‘working on the journey’ with his customers, Bruce has overseen the automated warehouse layout and technical design of some of Australia’s most impressive DC transformations, including for Jaycar Electronics, Booktopia, Harvey Norman, Jacks Retail Fiji and many others.
P 21
Dean returned to Australia in 2001 to take up a leadership role in a direct sourcing big box retailer’s organisation, overseeing their sourcing, procurement, supply chain and national W&D channels. In this role, he blended freight industry best practice and people management skill with the brand’s supply chain and distribution needs – resulting in supply chain transformation. In 2012, Dean joined Nick Jones (Ligentia’s founder) to establish Ligentia Australia. Today, Dean leads a team delivering data-driven supply chain solutions for brands such as Freedom Furniture, Myer, Spendless Shoes, industrial giant TotalEnergies, brand distributors such as United Living and Ionnic, and agriculture machinery specialists Muddy River. Since its founding, the business has grown to a team of 78, 3 locations in Australia, +$200M AUD revenue PA, +30,000 TEU inbound PA, +200K CBM of RoRo & BBK cargo shipped PA, and 40,000 pallet locations of warehouse storage across Australia. Dean credits his and Ligentia’s success to one major factor, what he calls the Ligentia way: everything we do is about proactively servicing what is critical to the quality of our customers’ businesses. Dean has created a customer first culture, enabling the business to grow and our people to learn & thrive.
