The man responsible for the logistical delivery of Hull’s year as UK City of Culture is to share vital lessons from staging major public events with logistics experts from across the globe.

Chris Clay, Technical & Operations Director of Hull UK City of Culture 2017, is a keynote speaker for the prestigious Logistics Research Network Annual Conference at the University of Hull.

The event, from September 7-9, is one of the leading conferences for logistics-related research in Europe and brings together experts in supply chain management from academia and industry.

As well as being a huge, year-long cultural and artistic festival, Hull’s year as UK City of Culture will be a mammoth logistical exercise, involving thousands of people in its delivery. The University of Hull is a Principal Partner of City of Culture and will play a key role in the delivery of a number of key events and exhibitions as well as working closely with the 2017 team on monitoring and evaluation of the year-long programme.

In overseeing the logistical challenges, Mr Clay will draw upon his extensive experience from being instrumental in the delivery of many high-profile events, including the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics opening and closing ceremonies and team presentation and opening ceremony for the 2014 Tour de France Grand Depart in Yorkshire.

He will tell conference delegates of the vital need to plan meticulously for both known and unknown eventualities.

“You can plan for what you know and you can plan for what you don’t know but what might happen, such as weather conditions. But sometimes there are things that you simply can’t predict until they happen,” said Mr Clay. 

“Dealing with those unexpected factors is often about ensuring you have enough financial contingency in your budget and time contingency in your planning. It’s about always giving yourself leeway to adjust.
“It’s also about quality of communication and sharing all the relevant information with the relevant people, so they know what they need to know and how they fit into the bigger picture. Once they understand that, you get their buy-in and commitment to the project.

“Staging a major event is like putting a huge jigsaw together. It’s important everyone involved can see the picture on the lid of the box so they know why they are there, what they are doing and how important that is. It might seem quite a small thing to the person involved but, for me, as the person with the whole picture, I might know it’s the key element to finish the whole production off.”

Mr Clay said the principles behind the delivery of major public events also applied to logistics in the fields of business and industry.

“It’s exactly the same really,” he added. “We’re not bringing raw materials into a factory, but we are getting together sometimes hundreds of contractors to be on site at a given time in order to complete a project for the public to see. So, in that sense, it’s a very similar process, just with different materials and a different output.

“The output is not the manufacture of widgets or having a product on supermarket shelves, it’s having a superb event ready for when the doors open to the public.”

The Logistics Research Network Annual Conference is sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) and hosted by the University, with support from the Hull University Business School and the University’s Logistics Institute.

The theme of the conference is “Doing the Right Thing – Ethical Issues in Logistics and Supply Chain” and will feature almost 100 presentations and contributors from more than 30 countries.

Conference Chair, Professor David Menachof, holder of the Peter Thompson Chair in Port Logistics at the Logistics Institute, said: “The theme enables participants to showcase the work they do that makes a positive difference to society at large and the conference will feature a wide range of presentations focused on topics such as sustainability, low carbon logistics and ethical supply chains.

“The theme also reflects the ethos of the University and the work we do to advance the causes of sustainability and ethical practice in logistics.”

Other leading speakers at the conference include:

• Professor Karen Spens, co-founder of the Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Research Institute (HUMLOG), a global focal point for researchers in humanitarian logistics.  
• David Heath, Head of Logistics at Clugston Distribution, based in Scunthorpe, who will talk about some of the initiatives that are making Clugston a better company by “doing the right thing”.
• Gary Forster, Managing Director of Transaid, an international transportation development charity founded by CILT and Save the Children.

Professor Amar Ramudhin, Director of the Logistics Institute, said: “Ethics in supply chain management are growing in importance as companies become increasingly aware of their corporate social responsibilities and reputation.

“This conference will provide a high-profile forum for the promotion of ways in which companies can manage their logistics responsibly and sustainably.”