CILT(UK)’s West Midlands Region brought together supply chain professionals, industry experts and students at its annual Supply Chain Innovation Conference on Thursday 15 October at Millennium Point, Birmingham, to explore how innovation can address some of the industry’s operational challenges.
The conference, hosted by the CILT(UK) West Midlands Regional group, was kicked off by Joanne Gumery, Chair of the Region and Senior Development Manager at Howard Tenens. The first keynote session, ‘From Sizzle to Substance: How innovation moves from pitch to proof’, was led by Claire Charlton, Open Innovation and Emerging Technology at GXO Logistics. Claire provided examples of a structured innovation programme, claiming that “adoption led innovation helps to design out the messy middle”, creating quality outcomes from impressive pitches.
Founder and CEO of Value Chain Lab, Michael Ostroumov, held the second keynote of the day, ‘Empty miles are a coordination failure: The case for more effective collaboration in logistics’. In this session, Michael revealed that nearly 1 in 3 HGV’s ran empty in 2025, claiming that a lack of coordination across companies is responsible – calling for the supply chain to operate horizontally as well as vertically.
The third session of the day, ‘Breaking Barriers: How to overcome challenges with automation adoption’, was delivered by Naomi Jones, Business Development Manager at Gebhardt. Delegates were asked what their top operational challenges are currently, and what they perceive to be the biggest barriers to automation in their companies. The room was unanimous that some of the greatest challenges were around capacity and data - with trust, cost and knowledge being barriers for change. Naomi advised to “start with the problem, not the technology”, identifying areas for improvement and understanding the root causes before building your business case and selecting a solution.
Following a short networking break, the next session asked the question: “Why do less than 1 in 5 major supply chain decisions land as intended?” Will Lovatt, Chief Revenue Officer at Kallikor, shared the results from their survey which discovered that only 19% of major supply chain decisions deliver “broadly as intended”, with critical decisions being made without testing, and companies taking an average of 103 days to make decisions.
The final keynote of the conference was on ‘Leading great innovation projects’, where Rebecca Hicks from Screwfix stressed the importance of getting stakeholders to believe in the project by showing them what it will unlock for their company, as well as ensuring team readiness before implementing a new idea.
We were delighted to have some Aston University students attend to learn from our speakers, as well as five students from across the region who are a part of our Novus Programme - a charitable initiative designed to bridge the gap between academia and industry by partnering with universities and employers. The programme recently achieved a significant milestone, welcoming eight new university partners over the past year and expanding its network to 26 universities across the UK. If you are interested in finding out more about Novus, please contact our Programme Manager Zara Nash, by emailing Zara.Nash@ciltuk.org.uk or connecting with her on LinkedIn.
“The West Midlands Conference demonstrates the value of bringing professionals together to exchange ideas and explore innovation. I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to the fantastic West Midlands Region team. Volunteers are the lifeblood of CILT(UK), helping us to amplify our purpose, grow our reach and most importantly bring people together and turn experience and expertise into opportunities to learn, connect and grow.”