Defence Logistics and Material Support 2003

The conference was held on March 20 and 21, 2003 in London (at Cafe Royal), jointly sponsored by  UKCeB  and SOLE UK.

The event was organised by Defence IQ, a division of IQPC, the International Quality & Productivity Center .

Below the report of the conference by John Crocker, director of SOLE UK; he chaired the first-day session.

I attended this 2-day conference in London (20-21 March 2003), chairing Day 1 representing SOLE. Day 2 was chaired by Brigadier Frank Steer (rtd) representing the the Institute of Quality Assurance. [...]

This was a conference very much of two halves. The first consisting mainly of papers from "industry" (Thales, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, AugustaWestland, EADS and SPIRENT) with MoD support. The second half was the converse. There were also two very good academic papers given by Drs Helen Peck and Derek Wright of Cranfield University (one on each day). All of the papers on Day 1 were, in my opinion, well above average whereas, with the very notable exception of the paper by Dr David Langness, Boeing which was the highlight of the day, the papers on Day 2 were below average. To be fair to the last two speakers on Day 2, I am in no position to comment on their presentations as I bowed out at the afternoon tea break - my apologies to them but had their predecessors been more engaging during the day then I might have been persuaded to stay to the end.

The speakers from industry were, by and large, positive and enthusiastic of their increasing role in the Defence Logistics Supply Chain leading one to believe that this was very much a dreaded win-win scenario. By contrast, the speakers from the MoD were very much more down beat spending much of their time explaining how difficult the whole thing was, how much money was involved and how many levels of bureaucracy were needed to manage it.

I came away from the event with two major observations:

neither industry nor the MOD will realise the full benefits from an increased industry involvement without there being a much greater level of trust between them and;

optimising the supply chain by minimising inventory levels and the number of suppliers is likely to prove a very dangerous policy for all concerned.

Both Peck and Wright cited numerous cases in which the organisations at the top of the chains have suffered badly from the results of changes in ownership and/or priority from suppliers further down the chain. Defence manufacturers and even the MOD itself, are often not the highest priority for many of the suppliers. Not only are the profit margins low but the quantities of some of the parts (particularly electronic) required may be almost infinitesimal compared to their other markets. Very often it is the cheap, insignificant components which prove to be the weakest link.

John Crocker, Data Systems & Solutions SoLE, UK Chapter, District Director and Chapter Chairman

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last update:  July 27, 2003