LSCMS Blog

Air pilot training school Alpha Aviation Group Philippines said it plans to expand operations in the Philippines to exploit the burgeoning demand in the low-cost carrier market, reports Manila’s Philippine Star.

Currently eighty per cent of its graduates fly with Airphil Express, Cebu Pacific, Zest Air and SEAir. International clients also include Air Arabia and Jet Airways, said the report but this expansion could see the school supply pilots to fly for other regional airlines. Like it has done in the maritime sector, qualified pilots from the Philippines could help drive down salaries of pilots for carriers like Tiger, Jetstar and the new low-cost offering from Qantas.

“We have invested in the state-of-the-art Airbus A320 Level D full flight simulator,” said Kunal Sharma, chief operating officer of the flight school at the Clark Freeport Zone in Pampanga.

“This is a multimillion-dollar investment that demonstrates our commitment to the Philippines, Philippine aviation, and training Filipinos for high-paying, professionally fulfilling jobs,” Mr Sharma said.

The company, which operates an Airbus A320 simulator at its four-bay simulator facility, is banking on the projected growth of the local commercial aviation industry. The new flight simulator will provide the company with the capability to deliver 6,000 hours of training annually – enough to train 300 new pilots.

Alpha Aviation Group commenced operation in 2006, and claims to be the world’s largest provider of Multi-crew Pilot License (MPL) pilots. The sector is currently driven by stiff competition among an expanding field of budget airlines, and an equally bullish regional market.

“Graduates of Alpha Aviation Group have established successful careers in the aviation industry. The training we provide is based on international standards, which prepares cadets to work anywhere in the globe,” said Capt Andrew McKenchnie, chief training officer.

It has been reported recently that DHL has launched a new multi-modal service operated by its global forwarding division between China and Japan, that is designed to cut costs by up to 60 per cent compared to air freight, and reduces transit time by up to three days compared to solely using an ocean freight service, the company announced.

What is interesting about this service is that DHL will be using 12 foot instead of the standard 20 and 40 foot containers that are in use globally today. Aside from the special equipment that may be needed to handle these multi-modal shipments, repositionong of empty containers back to China or Japan due to imbalance of demand between these two countries would be an added costs to overcome.

The multimodal service comprises the use of ferries, rail and trucks. Goods are picked up from any location in China, mainly Shanghai, Ningbo, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nantong, Wuxi, Nanjing, Hefei and Wuhan, and brought to Shanghai by truck, taken across to Hakata in Japan by ferry and then transported across Japan via Japan Rail.

In Japan, pick-up and delivery is done through Japan Rail and taken across to Shanghai by ferry, with final delivery to destinations in China completed by truck.

The concept of CDN’s or Combined Distribution Network developed by LSCMS President, Raymon Krishnan, is gaining growing interest in industry.

Hershey and Ferrero, two of the world’s largest candy makers announced recently that they will work together to sweeten their supply chains and reduce their carbon footprint in North America. The two companies launched a collaborative warehousing, transportation and distribution initiative in North America this week.

Hershey, a $6 billion U.S. chocolate and candy maker, and Ferrero, the almost $9 billion manufacturer of brands such as Nutella and Ferrero Rocher chocolates, will join to reduce truck miles, carbon dioxide output and energy use.

Although details of the initiative were not released, the shippers are expected to share warehousing and distribution facilities and truck capacity. The alliance does not encompass manufacturing, selling or marketing activities, the companies said. They hope to realize gains from the pact as early as 2012.

Singapore is offering a US$1 million cash prize for a global challenge in a bid to find the best new design for the next generation of container ports.

Announcing this on Wednesday at a maritime forum at Fusionopolis, Minister for Transport Lui Tuck Yew said the Singapore Maritime Institute (SMI) and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) will be organising the “Next Generation Container Port Challenge” in April next year.

He said those in the industry would know that the basic design of a container port has remained largely unchanged for decades – a simple plot of land with stacks of containers surrounded by cranes to lift boxes on and off ships.

He added while there have been some improvements in port technologies, these have been mostly incremental changes.

On the demand side, Mr Lui said, things have changed much more dramatically with container ships carrying more loads per trip.

Safety, security and the need to put in place environmentally-sustainable practices are also putting more demands on port infrastructure.

He said these are presenting real challenges for land-scarce Singapore.

Mr Lui said Singapore wants to source ideas from the brightest and the best from all over the world through the “Next Generation Container Port Challenge”.

“We want them not only to think out of the box, but around and even ahead of the box!” Mr Lui said.

The winning concept is expected to embody innovation, efficiency, productivity and sustainability.

Bloomberg Businessweek is reporting that colleges that offer Supply Chain Management (SCM) programs are turning down applicants as courses are oversubscribed. A popular SCM undergraduate course, offered at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania had to turn down applicants for its SCM course for the first time last semester.

The reason why students are looking to supply chain focused courses is that employers are looking to fill their supply chain jobs with applicants who have some kind of formal education in SCM. Major companies are identifying the supply chain as the area where they can become more efficient and they need experienced employees or graduates with good supply chain education. This is seen at Arizona State University’s W.P Carey School of Business who reported a 100 percent placement rate for the supply chain MBA’s who graduated in May of this year.

Logistics and SCM courses offered by schools in Asia, especially in Polytechnics experience a similar trend. It is however noted by many Logisticians that whilst a good basic education in Logistics and SCM is desirable, ours is one industry that relies heavily on experience and ability so whilst a good basics are desirable, an ability to learn and apply new concepts and ideas is an even greater asset.

The Logistics & Supply Chain Management Society is the proud recipient of the 2008 SCALA Education & Training Award.

One objective of L&SCMS is to bridge the gap between business and education in the field of Supply Chain Education & Training in Asia and we do this through a number of mediums.

We would like to thank everyone, including the 23,000+ readers of our online newsletter, for all the support you have given us over the years. Winning this award gives us the impetus to reach greater heights as the first platform for logistics professionals in the region.
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The concept of Combined Distribution Networks (CDN’s) is fairly easy to comprehend. A basic and simple definition would be:

“A CDN is the combination of the supply networks of different companies in the Supply Chain to achieve increased efficiencies and effectiveness.”

Collaboration of this nature is not unheard of and can be considered merely an extension of the theory of Supply Chain collaboration. There exists some real world examples in support of such implementation. The challenge in implementing an effective CDN would be between companies that would otherwise be competitors. The potential for recognizing increased efficiencies and effectiveness in overall performance in individual companies who implement CDN’s of this nature is staggering.

Current Supply Chain collaborative techniques allow growing businesses to reduce costs and improve customer service. In a Combined Distribution Network, detailed analysis of companies SKU-level product information is conducted over a period of time. This data will allow us to clearly understand the current transportation and warehousing structure as well as to establish an accurate cost baseline by which all optimization would be evaluated.

Purchasing, Inventory Management and Technology requirements could also be targets for a hybrid of the CDN theory.

Once the historical network baselines are developed, the analysis phase of the CDN can start by first scrutinizing the product flows, then using both the production information as well as customer consumption to determine the appropriate placement of warehouses and the transport network.

All models in the CDN will balance real world operational constraints put in place by companies involved in the CDN model with the need to service a majority of customers within a specified time frame, all whilst factoring in current market conditions for transportation rates into and out of each distribution market.

The further development and implementation of a CDN (ideally amongst competitors) will enable companies to optimize customer service whilst at the same time improve shareholder and stakeholder value.

After a complete and thorough analysis has been completed, a comprehensive RFQ can be built and 3PL’s with the capability to meet both or a part of the requirements invited to bid.

The final and perhaps most important reason why CDN’s should be further explored is the positive impact on the environment. Much has been done and needs to be done in the area of reducing the impact our Supply Chains have on the environment. The carbon footprint of individual products, from point of supply, to point of consumption are already being measured. CDN’s is one of the many ways these can be reduced.

From preliminary discussions with Supply Chain practitioners, there are a number of reasons why people feel CDN’s will not work. The main hurdle it would seem is the need to get stakeholders to overcome the common mindset that competitors should be treated as the enemy.

By Raymon Krishnan

20/02/2008

The Logistics and Supply Chain Management Society has achieved an industry’s first! It’s training partner, The Turning Point Business School, has been appointed as the ‘Program Manager’, the first Approved Training Organisation in Logistics Training with the Singapore Workforce Development Agency to conduct the ‘Workforce Skills Qualification’ or WSQ in Logistics.

By achieving the ‘Program Manager’ status, it allows the school to train individuals; both employed and unemployed, with minimal charges. On top of this, Training Allowance will also be disbursed to individuals or companies upon successful completion of their modules.

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New intakes for programmes in Logistics – please see the following links for more information:

• Diploma in Logistics Management
• BBA in Logistics & Supply Chain Management