SPECIAL OCT ‘21 EDITION
Previously when I had the privilege of opening this event, I spoke about Connection: Our industry thrives and relies on connections. You all understand the interconnectedness between industry sectors. Every single sector relies on every other sector. Inefficiency or crisis in one will naturally have repercussions up and downstream of the chain, a ripple effect at varying levels. Collaboration: Having worked in the industry for a while now, and been witness to the frustrations of various sectors in how to solve supply chain issues, I know and you all know, the best way is to get key stakeholders in a room to work together towards solutions. Especially in a crisis, the industry rises to the challenges, puts aside its differences and just gets the job done.
Sue Tomic SCLAA Board Chair
Managing Director - Chain Consulting Services, Non Executive Director.
Welcome Address On behalf of the SCLAA, I warmly welcome you all to the Australian Supply Chain & Logistics Awards (ASCLA), an event which has emerged as one of the most important occasions for the Supply Chain & Logistics Industry. We are delighted to be able to celebrate the highest of achievements and innovation in the industry. For those of you that attended last year, I did say were gonna need a bigger boat, so we got one. The last time we held this event in Sydney was 2019, which seems so long ago. There are over 470 in this room tonight, from all sectors of Supply Chain & Logistics-Ports, because most of our freight starts and ends on a ship, road transport, rail freight transport, freight forwarders, importers and exporters,
And speaking of crisis, the logistics and freight industry has waves of working under duress, but this was an understatement just a short 2 years ago. The crisis faced by our industry was so widespread that we even managed to get the attention of main stream media, we were declared an essential service (who would have thought) and are all essential workers!! But as they say, necessity is the mother of invention and the results of working under crisis, was innovation. The acceleration of technological solutions being embraced by industry led us to acknowledge and introduce the relatively new awards of Big Data, IT and Business Intelligence award and Robotics, Automation and Emerging Technology. In the last few years, another focus was Resilience - it became a catch cry not only within our industry but globally. Risk mitigation was, and continues to be, at the forefront of decision making. The quick shift from Just in time to Just in case inventory managemnet, diversifying suppliers, customers, innovating new ways to manage the supply and movement of goods. So where are we now? I get asked a lot- what is the industry outlook, what are the industry issues, what is or should be the industry’s focus? Innovation: We are all in the same boat all going through the same pain currently with increased inflation due to
Chair VIP table (L to R) Michael Volonakis - Swift Transport, Leanne Graham, Paul Graham - CEO Australia Post, Sue P 3 - SCLAA Chair, Marika Calfas - CEO NSW Ports, Craig Jackson-Director NSW Ports, Natalie Pelham - CEO ONSR Tomic
