MHD SUPPLY CHAIN
THRIVING IN A SUPPLY CHAIN TRANSFORMED BY COVID MHD covers some of the key issues discussed at the Körber Supply Chain Elevate APAC conference roundtable on how to thrive in a supply chain shaken up by the pandemic.
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ishan Wijemanne, Managing Director, Asia Pacific for Körber Supply Chain Software , chaired a roundtable at the recent Körber Supply Chain Elevate APAC conference roundtable to discuss the subject ‘How to thrive in a supply chain transformed by a pandemic’. The impact of COVID-19 posed significant challenges for global supply chain, bringing many existing issues to the forefront. In the aftermath of the pandemic, with organisations pushing for collaboration, resilience, and agility, Nishan asks his roundtable guests what the post-pandemic supply chain would look like and what strategies should companies put in place to strengthen their position moving forward. Nishan notes that Catch.com.au – a leading e-commerce retailer and Körber’s customer – is one of the great success stories in Australia in recent years. With active customers doubling through the pandemic, he asks Ryan Parker, Supply Chain Project Manager at Catch.com.au what strategies his team is putting in pace to deal with the steep growth curve. “It’s been both an exciting and a challenging time for us,” Ryan says. “First and foremost for us has been ensuring our team members within the warehouse work in a safe environment. Beyond that it’s been a matter of consistently meeting customer delivery promises, meeting their expectations, as well as devising ways of getting closer to our customers.” With so many competing demands, Ryan says that a key notion for Catch has been to not become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of demand growth, but
22 | MHD DECEMBER 2021
Catch has opted for AMR technology to future-proof their warehouses.
rather “take a step back” and re-align with the foundational principles of the company and shaping forward-looking initiatives around them. “Starting with those principles that we use at Catch allows us to get a wellrounded view of what we’re trying to achieve,” he says. “Our customer is who we’re trying to look after, so we’ve worked to improve on our customercentric network to bring us closer to customers, increase delivery speeds, and improve delivery options. That’s our first principle.” Undergirding that foundational principle, Ryan says, are the additional principles of “flexibility” and “resiliency”. So, what initiatives has Catch put in place to follow through on these principles? “Catch’s main warehouse is located in Victoria,” Ryan says. “And a big initiative we’ve undertaken over the past 12 to 18 months has been working with Nishan and the Körber team to
build additional automation into that warehouse. We’ve added over 100 AMRs into that existing Victorian footprint in order to meet additional demand. The rollout of this flexible solution has helped us with our picking and packing capacity to meet not just new peaks but an elevated new average throughput.” In addition, Ryan says that a key Catch initiative has been to commission a new brownfield fulfilment centre in Sydney encompassing over 350 AMRs so that the company isn’t “bottlenecked” in Victoria – thereby increasing resilience – and is closer to the key NSW market. But with the inherent unpredictability of forecasts three to five years ahead, Ryan says that Catch has opted for “modular” styles of automation – like the AMRs deployed in Victoria – so that they aren’t locked into too big a wholescale automation that might not be fit for purpose a decade hence. With the impact of home-schooling and at-home offices, Nishan points out that Officeworks has played a key role in
