Gwynne Richards Joins The Academy

We are pleased to announce that Gwynne Richards has joined the SCA family.

Gwynne Richards has over thirty-five years’ experience in warehouse management and logistics. As well as running his own successful logistics consultancy, he tutors a number of courses on warehousing, logistics outsourcing and transport management. He is also a visiting lecturer at the Supply Chain Academy, University of Warwick, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Singapore Institute of Management. He is the author of Warehouse Management and The Logistics and Supply Chain Toolkit, both published by Kogan Page.

SCA’s Commercial Director, Alex Mortimer caught up with Gwynne earlier this week to ask him about why he sees warehousing as being a key element in every effective supply chain

“We see the need for warehouses at every section of the supply chain; from raw materials storage through to finished goods, fulfilment centres and returned goods centres. As a result, the warehouse is becoming even more important in today’s supply chain. It can make or break a company if the service provided to the end user is poor. In today’s social media dominated world, bad experiences can be shared across many platforms and reach large numbers of potential customers and consumers. The warehouse, alongside transport is at the centre of providing the seven customer “rights”.

• Right product
• Right quantity
• Right condition
• Right place
• Right customer
• Right time
• Right cost

All at the least cost to the environment.

The challenges are many though; whenever I ask course delegates, they say that their key challenges are lack of space, closely followed by shorter order lead times. Other challenges that are often figure highly on the list are the difficulty in attracting skilled labour, together with the decision as to whether and how much to invest in technology, which can be particularly challenging for SMEs.

In the logistics world, staff tend to be very resourceful and overcome many issues in order to satisfy their customers. I’ve seen a number of warehouses underperform through poor management, lack of or incorrect processes and having to overcome, at times, almost impossible customer demands.

I’m passionate about helping companies overcome these challenges and improve their warehouse operations. I never thought I would ever write a book on the subject, but the amount of material I found when I was setting my courses gave me the opportunity to put down in writing what I’ve learnt throughout the years and from other experts in the field. The feedback I get from people who have read the books is very satisfying. I set out to write a book that that was easy to read- not too technical – and gives the reader some ideas on how they can improve their warehouses.”

Gwynne will be delivering our next Warehouse Management course in March. Details here.

The course covers every aspect of warehouse operations; from pre-receipt through to despatch, considering performance management, costs, labour planning and health and safety. Using the challenges faced by each of the delegates as examples, Gwynne uses the most up-to-date materials and knowledge to enable delegates to overcome these challenges and to go back to their warehouse with the confidence to implement more effective solutions.