Railway Strategies’ annual supply chain conference has now reached its sixth year and continues to go from strength to strength. Prominent amongst the speakers at the 2011 event was Sir Roy McNulty who provided some valuable insights into his ‘Rail Value for Money’ Study shortly before its publication. With investment in the rail industry continuing at encouraging levels, Railway Strategies and the Rail Alliance believe that there is every reason to remain positive in 2012. The conference programme has the objectives of taking the ‘value for money’ theme forward and giving the supply chain a chance to hear from key stakeholders in the industry about how to unlock the real opportunities for everyone involved.

A key area that Sir Roy’s Study considered would deliver major savings was a focus on achieving best practice in supply chain management. Specifically, it called for more long-term planning in procurement decisions and better visibility of projected demand to reduce workload volatility; this could be achieved in part by suppliers and contractors being organised into incentivised strategic partnerships and having greater involvement at the specification stage. To underpin this envisaged change there will also need to be a programme of training and professional development at all levels throughout the industry. There should also be a review of the process by which new suppliers enter the supply chain, in an effort to minimise unnecessary barriers.

By implementing the recommendations of the Study, Sir Roy believes that the GB rail industry can achieve cost reductions of 30% by 2018/19, which by his own admission will be “challenging”.

How will the industry respond to the challenge?

This year’s event promises to deliver answers to this question and more, and with confirmed speakers from UKTI, ATOC, ORR, RDG, NSARE, PSL and Achilles, is already attracting interest from former delegates keen to secure repeat attendance. Again, we will be offering a limited number of sponsorhip/exhibiting opportunities to enable forward thinking businesses to expose their services and skill sets to the personnel attending this event who are in a position to take the industry forward and meet the challenges ahead