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GCL Group’s Charles-Antoine Marcil on increasing operational efficiency
SUPPLY CHAIN VISIBILITY: IMPLEMENTING THE RIGHT TOOLS
Charles-Antoine
Marcil, Managing Director at GCL Group, sheds light on his company’s expertise, helping customers increase their operational efficiency.
CL Group is a logistics consulting firm, assisting customers in their logistics and supply chain optimisation projects. Based in Montreal, the company has offices around the world, working across multiple industries. Charles-Antoine Marcil is Managing Director at GCL Group.
His role is to develop the business and identify new customers, trends and challenges with which to assist customers, as well as recruiting the right people to build his team. GCL Group has three pillars of expectation for team members:
1. Curiosity – be aware of what is happening in the market and in the supply chain industry. 2. Collective intelligence – collaborate cross-functionally across the team to bring the best solutions to customers.
3. Engagement – engage with customers, with the supply chain community locally and internationally, and within the company to promote an entrepreneurship mentality.
Many challenges are currently impacting supply chain globally. The labour shortage remains a problem for many companies in Canada and around the world. Charles-Antoine explains, “People are having issues recruiting staff, so they want to keep the workforce they have. They are looking at alternatives to better use their resources, such as automation and robots, which can help workers to be more efficient. Also, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can help to reduce manual work that is not value-added. We recommend automation technologies in warehouses in order to better use the workforce. We also propose resources from our team to help the customer achieve their supply chain projects.”
The environment is also a huge topic for companies like GCL Group in helping customers to fulfil their sustainability ambitions. Charles-Antoine continues, “We recommend strategies to support companies in their aim to have a better impact on the environment, taking into account transportation or the mode of transport, for example. We look at the impact today, and the strategies we can use to reduce that impact in the future, such as infrastructures that are more sustainable. With ecommerce, there is a lot of packaging involved in moving products around the world, so we also have to ask how we can make that process greener.”
Sustainability strategies are becoming increasingly important for GCL Group’s customers, but Charles-Antoine believes it is crucial that companies take action to help protect the planet for future generations. He adds, “We need to consider what strategies we can take to make sure the supply
chain has a reduced impact on the environment.”
Charles-Antoine says, “Because we touch different industries, we can bring the best practices from one industry to another. Our value proposition is built around six different expertise areas, but most projects are in logistics, warehouse design and distribution centre layouts. This involves everything that happens inside the four walls of the warehouse or distribution centre, such as optimising process, equipment, organisational structure, and automation, aiming to improve the overall effectiveness of operations.”
The second expertise area is around information systems. Charles-Antoine explains, “It is about making sure that companies have the best solution to be able to support the physical processes, revolving around warehouse management systems, transport management systems, supply chain automation, and everything related to Industry 4.0.
“There is another expertise touching the supply chain, including suppliers, import/export and inventory levels. We have seen a lot of disturbance over the last two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so supply chain projects have become increasingly important. A lot of customers
are asking questions about how everything will look five years from now. We are putting strategies in place to support the growth of these companies.”
Outside of the warehouse and distribution centre, another of GCL Group’s expertise lies in optimising the distribution network. Charles-Antoine says, “We look at warehouse positioning in a geographical area, whether it is throughout Canada, the the supply chain community, helping them to learn best practices via webinars and training sessions, as well as providing interim management. Charles-Antoine adds, “We offer resources from our team to support projects, or lend a hand as analysts or project managers. Companies lack the expertise, resources and time, so that is where we come in, making sure that their projects will be successful.”
Charles-Antoine Marcil, Managing Director
US, or the world. Where should we put our warehouse and distribution centres to make them more efficient and reduce the distribution costs? With ecommerce on the rise, a lot of our customers are asking how they can be more efficient in delivering on the last mile, especially since Amazon has set the benchmark of same-day deliveries.”
The last expertise areas centre around training and coaching of In supporting companies on their journey towards operational efficiency and excellence, CharlesAntoine says the starting point is always a review of their operations. He continues, “It is about understanding where the company is at the moment, compared to best practices in their industry. With their data and having talked with their people, we can understand the business, its challenges, and identify opportunities. We take a human approach, which our
customers really like, as we can pull together information from the people who work in the operations. From there, we build scenarios, action plans and strategies to make sure their vision, growth and expectations can be met, with the right tools, systems, equipment and people in place. We work as a team, cross-functionally across the different expertise areas, to ensure our customers get the best solutions.”
Some customers come to GCL Group knowing what is lacking in their supply chain and where to focus their attention. They just want to confirm that the actions they are taking are appropriate. On the other hand, other companies are unable to pinpoint where they are going wrong. Charles-Antoine says, “Looking at the financial data or service level, for example, we can start to understand how we can help. Audits and diagnostic tools determine where the company is today versus best practice in their industry. An action plan can be put in place to benchmark what they are doing. We use different tools to look at their strategies, financial data, operational data, organisational structure and KPIs, to make sure we can really understand where their issues lie.”
Some factors may be external, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, which affected all businesses around the world. Ships and containers were stuck in ports, so companies had to look into alternative measures, such as buying locally or using different products. Charles-Antoine says, “We developed a webinar for companies on how to review their supply chain and manage risk. Evaluating your current suppliers and ensuring you have good strategies for new product introduction are key to making your supply chain more efficient. A lot of companies ship in products from China because it is cheaper, but that became an issue during the pandemic. Identifying risks and not putting all your eggs in one basket will help to mitigate against future challenges.”
Charles-Antoine highlights the importance of having a Plan B in the event of the unexpected happening. He elaborates, “If we have an issue today or in the future, how can we help the company to keep running and ensure everyone continues to obtain
their objectives? It is a question of strategy. A lot of companies have come to us in the last month for different strategic projects. Take network optimisation, for example. How should we organise our network and our supply chain in order to integrate risk management and make sure we can compensate for those risks? We have developed such supply chain strategies, whether opening or closing facilities, or asking partners to support us to offer greater flexibility.” is to bring in tools to support the data, ensuring supply chain visibility, which is essential when forming any action plan. CharlesAntoine confirms, “A good system, dashboard, KPIs and relationships with your partners help provide visibility on where your products are and if you are likely to have any issues along your supply chain. The technologies exist – you just have to identify the right one to implement in your supply chain strategy in order to give the decision makers the visibility to make the right decision. We use the Excel Index to determine how good a system a company has in place. Are they using Excel spreadsheets to manage information, which are not centralised and lack visibility? We help companies select the right solution and implement the right tools to make sure they can have good visibility in their supply chain, with access to their data
i.e. business intelligence. It is hard to know what will happen in the future, but with the data, you can make a reliable forecast.”
GCL Group has formed an ecosystem of trusted partners to make sure the company can bring the best solutions to its customers. Charles-Antoine says, “We have a couple of partners per expertise area. In warehouse design and distribution centre layouts, we have to make sure the right equipment is being used for every zone of the warehouse, whether it’s picking, packing or shipping. We do the analysis and look at what the customer requires in terms of capacity, density and selectivity in order to recommend the best tools. Pedlex is a partner we recommend to customers to get the optimum equipment for their needs. They come in and do the installation, making sure everything is set up properly, with us acting as project manager. We are there to ensure everything runs smoothly and that the customer is satisfied with the end result.”
