Raymon Krishnan LOGISYM2014 Conference Chair Opening Remarks

Bob thank you for the introduction. Good morning colleagues and fellow Logisticans and welcome to LogiSYM 2014. It is great to see so many familiar faces. Perhaps more importantly though it is also good to see new faces in the audience. We appreciate the effort you have all taken to carve some time out of your busy schedules to come and share, learn, discuss, debate and network in what I am sure will be a fulfilling 2 days.. This is the largest LogiSYM event we have organized to date and it has been quite some time in the planning and launch to the eventual end result that you see today. The theme for this years event is Supply Chains of Tomorrow: Ideas in practice. What we had in mind when we came up with this theme was firstly to share latest trends and ideas in Supply Chain Management to implement in the supply chains we manage or influence. Secondly, we want to explore in greater detail why these concepts and ideas seldom work as well as they should and what we can do to improve success and overall Supply Chain performance by adopting these best in class technologies and concepts. That is the rationale we adopted around Logisym this year and I hope participants will find this beneficial.

We did get some feedback when people saw that the event was supported by 3 Universities with fairly strong Supply Chain programmes that there was a concern that this was going to be a symposium with a very strong academic slant. Whilst we do have very strong participation and support from the University of Wollongong and to a much lesser extent the National University of Singapore and Technical Universiti of Munich you will notice in the programme that we only have 4 academics speaking over the next 2 days so rest assured that this is not the case. What we do have instead is a good complement of theorists and practitioners who will be looking at topics from all perspectives.

FORMAT From the agenda you will see that we have a number of round tables, panels and even debates interspersed with presentations. From experience we have found this to be the most beneficial format and it is something that we see other conference organisers emulating. Like many of you, I get the most out of any event when I get to interact, discuss and ask questions as opposed to sitting passively and listening to a boring speaker go on and on. We have deliberately kept the groups relatively small and whilst we have more than 250 attendees the symposium will be broken up into groups of about 100 when we break into the individual tracks. We have thought leaders assigned to facilitate the round tables and the debaters have been given clear instructions to mix things up during the debates. We are sure this format of talks, panels, debates and round tables will provide maximum benefit to delegates. We have numerous opportunities to network over the next two days and also have a networking cocktail event this evening kindly sponsored by Astrum Lighting and SoSoon. For those of you who have not yet registered, please see Peter at the registration desk before lunch to book a place. This is also probably an opportune time to point out that All views expressed by the speakers or participants are those of the individual and not that of the company he or she is representing at the Symposium. This is a safe venue to broach subjects related to Supply Chain Management and nothing will be distributed or communicated without the authors express permission. This advisory is especially put in place for those of us with opposing views during the debates / but applies throughout LogiSYM . To encourage discussion and thought / we want to look at topics objectively and we want delegates to be aware of this condition

Q&A All of you who registered before March 10th would have received an email from the Programme Chair seeking feedback on what you want to see discussed at LogiSYM For those of you who responded. Thank you for your input. What you see over the next 2 days is for the most part based on your feedback. The most interesting question I saw was Who exactly is the Logistics and SCM Society? I found this a bit amusing but I am sure a few of you are asking the same thing as well. This is a high profile view of who we are and what we are about. - Established 15 years ago as a Singapore government gazetted Society - 100% not for profit - Staffed and managed by volunteers comprising of a Secretariat, ExCo & Advisory Board - We publish the The Logistican One of the largest and oldest on-line Supply Chain related newsletters with 35,000 plus subscribers The Logistician was this week identified as one of the Top 50 Best Global Supply Chain Blogs of 2014. by Supply Chain Opz.com. The list shortlists high quality blogs that talk about international trade, global logistics, sourcing, risk/compliance, green & humanitarian issues. Being one of the oldest and highest subscribed Newsletters in the Asia Pacific region, we are glad that our efforts to support the industry has resulted in this small bit of recognition.

- We have supported Logistics Insight Asia since the magazine was first released and now have more than 13,000 subscribers About 9 years ago we had the opportunity to work with Bob Gill (our MC) when he was the editor of LIA to start LIA. Today it has a readership base of more than 13,000 subscribers and aside from contributing articles we also sit on the editorial board of the magazine and have a monthly section in it. - We are involved in Training & Development We conduct training in Malaysia, Vietnam and very soon in Myanmar and in collaboration with STEi in Singapore we have the only 6 + 6 Diploma study work pass programme for Supply Chain Management in Singapore. You can read more about this in the course brochures you received this morning when you registered for LogiSYM. We have a whole bunch of other events and activities that we do such as trade facilitation and just a few weeks ago we released the beta of an iphone and android Logistics & SCM dictionary. Instructions on how to download this can be found on the last page of the LogiSYM programme. We also support or organize events like this. At a price of $108.00, this is probably the lowest cost event of its kind. I always say this to our members and I will say the same thing to you as well - This is your industry body. If any of you want to contribute your time or leverage off the reach that we have please feel free to approach us.

EXHIBITORS We have a small exhibition area outside this room with 10 exhibitors. Please visit each and every one of them. One of the featured topics in Logisym this year is 3D printing. Much has been written and speculated about this concept and how the technology is a potential threat in the Supply Chain. Not only do we have an expert to share with us on this topic, we have actually arranged for actual live printing of 3D objects to be carried out in the Exhibition area so that we can see and touch and get to know this technology first hand. I am not sure about the rest of you, but it was not until a couple of months ago that I actually got to see a 3D printer in action and actually got to hold in my hand a 3D printed object. Delegates will be able to do this as well and will also be given an actual 3D object when they visit 3D creatz stand.

ATTENDEES We have more than 250 people attending LogiSYM. Just over half of this group, at 53%, are shippers or end users of Logistics services. Not surprisingly, we have almost 30% of attendees who are 3PLs. The remainder of delegates are consultants or from other ancillary service providers and individuals from the area of education. In putting LogiSYM together this year, a few glaring points were obvious. There is dire shortage of women and ASEAN Logisticians who appear willing to come forward to speak or participate. This is a little disappointing for me especially when I consider the expertise and knowledge this group possesses. According to some rough statistics from the University of Wollongong and Republic Polytechnic, women make up between 48 60% of each cohort but we only have 3 female speakers over the next 2 days. Of the 38 speakers only 8 are from South East Asia. We see the same in most event we attend and I continue to hope that this pattern will soon be reversed. One last point was glaringly obvious. Aside from a few exceptions, and there must always be exceptions, it has been a pleasure working with the speakers for LogiSYM this year. You are all true professionals and I would like to thank each and every one of you who has kindly agreed to extend their valuable time over the next couple of days. I applaud your willingness to come forward and contribute to the development of our profession.

THANKS Aside from our speakers, I would also like to thank all our sponsors. In particular I would like to thank our Gold Sponsor- Toll Global Logistics. Our track sponsors: DHL, Logistics Executive, Keyfields and Mediatech,. Tradenet Pte Ltd our lunch sponsor and all our other sponsors and supporters Without them, LogiSYM 2014 would not be possible. I would also like to thank the volunteers from Republic Polytechnic and Nanyang Technological University and the organizing committee members, in particular Manju from Logistics Executive, where are you Manju? Meng Choon from Keyfields and Our very own Peter Raven who helps run the Societys Secretariat. The 3 of them have been working tirelessly behind the scenes these last few weeks filling in wherever needed to help make this event a success. As mentioned earlier the Society is 100% not for profit and is run by volunteers so it is people like them and our generous sponsors that allow us to bring such events to you.

Penultimaely, as we are all aware, no endevour of this magnitude can be carried out without a few key people and LogiSYM 2014 is no different. Aside from the organizing committee members, two individuals played a key part in todays event. This first person is probably one that is familiar to most of us in this room, Darryl Judd has been a supporter of LogiSYM and the Society from the get go. Anytime we hit a bump in the road or needed that extra bit of help or support, Darryl has stepped up without having to be asked to do what was needed. Darryl, thank you for being a friend of the Society and to the industry. The other person I would like to thank is my better half Stephanie who has been doing a lot of the heavy lifting for this event. From the technology around the event to our programme design and content to the automated registration system. She has also been the one responsible for co-ordinating with all the speakers and managing our respective egos and eccentricities and completing numerous other tasks that needed doing. Finally, I would like to thank all of you yet again for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend LogiSYM. I hope the event is all you want it to be and more. Thank you very much!