Over two days in May, Elevate APAC attendees poured into Sydney’s Hilton Hotel for fascinating keynote presentations, technology insights and valuable industry engagement. Here, MHD summarises the must-attend supply chain event.
Bringing together industry leaders, technology experts, and businesses eager to gain insights into the latest supply chain innovations Elevate APAC 2024 took pace in Sydney last month.
Over the course of two days, attendees were treated to a variety of thought-provoking presentations which helped to explore strategic directions around technology implementation, accelerate decision making processes and purposefully consider how to drive future success.
KÖRBER EXECUTIVES SET THE TONE
Bill Ryan, Vice President of APAC at Körber, kicked off the event by explaining the “Chart Your Course” theme, emphasising the importance of providing data and information to help customers grow their businesses.
Today’s supply chain landscape is rife with challenges – port disruptions, global conflicts, land restrictions, and economic constraints limiting capital availability necessitate digital efficiency in your supply chain. Bill explained how Körber fits into this complicated landscape and reviewed a “year of crescendo” that was 2023.
For the sixth consecutive year, Körber has been named a Leader in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ Warehouse Management Systems report, and in 2023 was awarded Gartner’s customer choice badge.
“The recognition is nice, but what matters to us is the recognition from our customers. We are growing our own business so we can help to grow yours,” Ryan says.
Co-CEO Sean Elliott reflected on Körber’s technology milestones from 2023, including the launch of a modern microservices platform, upgraded UI & platform suite of extensibility tools to connect to both services and legacy back ends, and the introduction of Slotting.IQ, Körber’s first data science-powered offering.
Looking ahead to 2024, Elliott predicted a focus on workforce efficiency, data visibility, supply chain risk and resilience, as well as a global rebalancing of supply chains.
Providing insights into Körber’s direction for this year and beyond, Elliott flagged a number of investments to continue to progress Körber’s suite of solutions. In 2024, Körber will advance its workflow management platform, take its Order Management System to the Australian market, further invest in its Transport Management System, introduce a WMS chatbot and continue to modernise WMS solutions to build the foundation for innovation and the future of strategic partnerships.
“Today we’ve gone past functionality, you need a user grade experience for the modern worker,” Elliott said. “We establish a foundation of data science to help customers decide on the correct next steps for their business – the reason we exist is because of our customers.”
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS PUT WORLD SUPPLY CHAINS INTO PERSPECTIVE
Paul Bloxham, HSBC’s chief economist for Australia, New Zealand and Global Commodities, provided a macro view of the world economy, noting that while the global economy is performing better than expected, the real outperformer has been the United States.
Turning to Australia’s position, Bloxham stated that while growth has slowed, we are not in an outright slump. The supply side of the economy has been poor, with weak productivity gains post-pandemic. As a result, key components of inflation like rents, energy costs, insurance premiums and services remain stubbornly high.
Bloxham advocated for policy action to improve productivity, including tax reform and lateral solutions such as broadening the GST base and removing stamp duty at the state level to encourage more business competition. He predicted interest rates would hold at current levels through 2024 as the primary focus for the Reserve Bank of Australia remains bringing down inflation.
Jessica Watson followed Paul as the other keynote presentation that afternoon, sharing her inspiring journey of becoming the youngest person to sail solo around the world.
In line with the theme ‘Chart Your Course’, Jessica’s remarkable story served as a powerful metaphor for navigating the complexities of supply chains.
She shared her own story of harnessing fear, managing risk, and building resilience to give perspective on courses of action for today’s supply chain leaders, who face their own challenges sailing through unpredictable market trends, operational hurdles, and global uncertainties.
TECHNOLOGY SESSIONS HIGHLIGHT INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS
Several technology sessions at the conference showcased Körber’s growing portfolio of automation, software, and industry-leading supply chain technology solutions.
Mark Danckwerts, Manager of Program Development at Hastings Deering, shared the dealer’s journey in implementing Körber’s Warehouse Management System in distribution centres around Queensland.
In working with Körber to deploy a new WMS, Danckwerts discussed the key benefits, including improved planning, efficiency, order management, and inventory management, as well as the avoidance of large-scale WMS failure risk.
Jeffrey Triantafilo, Associate Partner at Argon & Co, explained key factors behind building a solid business case for supply chain improvement projects. Drivers such as digital transformation, labour and automation, sustainability, resilience and e-commerce are prevalent in today’s business landscape, to which Jeffrey emphasised understanding the current state of your business before designing its future state.
Will Fan, General Manager of ANZ for Gold Sponsor Hai Robotics, discussed the partnership between Körber and Hai, showcasing successful case studies and exploring opportunities for further expansion in the Australian market.
Kurt Seafield, VP of Field Services at Körber, highlighted the company’s new Support, Delivery & Operations (SDO) initiative, which streamlines customer support by consolidating different functions under one unified umbrella. The SDO organisation uses an “AI Observability Stack” to proactively identify potential issues and provide preventative measures.
VISIT TO CATCH.COM.AU: A GLOBAL BENCHMARK FOR AUTOMATION SUCCESS
As well as keynotes, case studies and presentations, participants attended an exclusive tour of Catch.com.au’s mega 36,000 sqm fulfilment centre in Sydney’s Moorebank.
Visitors were able to see first-hand Körber’s Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) solution and learn more about how the technology has enabled Catch to deliver exceptional customer service, as well as improve efficiency, safety and productivity.
The facility serves as an example of what’s possible in flexible and agile automation and is a global benchmark for online retailers worldwide.
Körber’s AMRs are deployed to bring racks of product to team members, with the technology working alongside the Catch team on site. The visit demonstrated how the technology decreases the time between customer orders and processing, reduces out of stock orders and reflects more accurate inventory levels.
ELEVATE APAC: A MUST-ATTEND EVENT
Körber Elevate APAC 2024 reached new heights, providing valuable insights into the latest supply chain technology solutions, trends, and conversations shaping the industry.
Anthony Beavis, Regional Managing Director at Körber thanked all the event’s sponsors and attendees for making Elevate APAC a resounding success.
“Elevate continues to be a must-attend annual event for industry leaders across supply chain. This year, businesses and experts came together to collaborate and assess the technologies that can elevate business operations and solve modern supply chain problems. A big thank you to all our partners, sponsors and customers who made the event possible, including platinum sponsor HAI Robotics, Cloud Partner Oracle, Gold sponsors NEOS and Honeywell, Silver sponsors SOTI, iWMS, Balloon One and Locus, and Coffee Cart Zebra Technologies.”
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