News Release
November 6, 2000
Conference to highlight ‘best practice’ in supply chain management
Only businesses that have got their supply chain act together will survive the fast approaching e-business revolution.
The good news is, there is a lot of leadership and innovation in supply chain management in New Zealand.
These are the opinions of two experts in the ever-evolving field of supply and fulfilment.
Owen Keates from Mi Services Group and Danie Vermeulen manager of supply chain development at Carter Holt Harvey Wood
Products, say it’s all well and good embarking on an e-commerce strategy but no value is added until someone makes the
right product and delivers it to a consumer in full, on time and to specification.
And delivering products to the consumer in a timely, profitable and secure manner is one of the great challenges of
business.
The two are gearing up to present papers at the Supply-Chain World-ANZ 2000 Conference and Exhibition to be held
mid-November in Sydney.
Focusing on the Supply-Chain Operations Reference-model (SCOR), the theme for this year’s conference is ‘Thought
Leadership from Down Under.’
“There’s a lot of focus in New Zealand on e-commerce at the moment but nothing would happen without efficient supply
chain management,” Mr Vermeulen said.
“It’s imperative for businesses of all sizes to understand and manage efficiently their end-to-end supply chains. And
that is reliant on all the links of a particular supply chain having compatible process models.”
Mr Keates, who is vice chairman of the Supply Chain Council, says implementing the SCOR process is a strategic
imperative.
“If you’re not doing it — and not doing it well — then you’re probably losing ground to your competitors,” he says.
“SCOR focuses in three areas: people, process and technology. It helps in creating a vision of supply chain excellence
through best practice analysis.
“It helps by providing a clear process for analysing and improving your supply chain. And it helps by recommending
features required for your supply chain technology,” Mr Keates says.
Mr Vermeulen said the flexibility within the SCOR framework was a major advantage.
“You can customise and emphasise relevant framework within a process framework. And with the pace of business speeding
up c-commerce — c for collaboration — becomes critical to work together, synchronise and share business processes for
the benefit of all.”
This event is the first Supply-Chain World conference held in the Australasian region.
The Supply-Chain Council was incorporated in 1997 as a global, not-for-profit trade association with membership open to
all companies interested in improving supply-chain efficiencies through the use of the SCOR-model.
SCOR is a supply-chain diagnostic tool that enables users to address, improve, and communicate supply-chain management
practices within and among all interested parties.
SCOR creates a language for communicating among intra-company functions and inter-company supply-chain partners. The
model defines common supply-chain management processes and matches them against ‘best practices’, benchmarking
performance data and optimal software applications.
Supply Chain World Australia and New Zealand begins on Monday 13 November.
Sponsors of the conference include SAP Australia, Linfox Transport, EXE Technologies, Mi Consulting Group, BHP, and
AspenTech Inc.
ends
For more information on attending the Supply-Chain World-ANZ, visit www.supplychainworld.org or contact Owen Keates,
Vice Chairman, Supply Chain Council: +64 9 358 4114.
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