Rob Harper

Email: robert@loguru.co.uk

Introduction 

A proud Lancastrian, a mechanical engineer, a supply chain expert but most importantly a family man. 

I am happily married, have three grown up and successful children. These are the centre of my life. 

My life is driven around six key values personal to me, which are: 

• my “Family”,   
• to “love” and to be loved,  
• “Health” for my family, my friends and me,  
• to be “Happy” and to gain happiness through watching and helping others succeed,  
• to have enough “Wealth” to allow choices without worry,  
• and last but not least “Gratitude” 

I both give and receive respect. 

I am driven and competitive, in my younger days I was one of the top 20 motorcycle trials riders, competing at Championship level. This competitive spirit continues to drive me through my career, the need to quickly learn, adapt and come up with creative solutions to succeed was learnt here.

Losing my father far too early in my life was a key driver. My father was an entrepreneur and a key sponsor of my sporting activities. With him gone, I quickly had to brush myself down and find a new path to my life. This resulted in me achieving a master’s degree in supply chain from Cranfield Institute of Technology.

It is this spirit of reinvention that continues to drive me – my journey of personal development will never end. Most recently, this has been evidenced by becoming a Master Practitioner of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming)

I remain passionate about motorbikes, owning both a trials and motocross bikes. I am also deeply fond of my 4 dogs.

Background

My main interests during the Cranfield journey, (other than flirtation and carousing!), was operational research, linear programming, and the like, in simple terms - optimisation. This passion to optimise and to develop the best of the best has never left me.

My first two real jobs were with LSPs, as Logistics & Supply Chain Analyst. My responsibilities were primarily responding to tenders. Upon reflection, I was lucky enough to have work for a boss whose background was “Time & Motion” (todays terminology Work Measurement & Method study), this provided me with knowledge of synthetics and how the costs structures were formed.

During this career period, I had the opportunity to use technology and really understand how it can be utilised to test supply chain scenario across many businesses. This fed my fascination for optimisation, and led me toward my passion to optimise .

From here I continued to build my career foundations in the Cement Industry I was given a tough brief (but free rein) to “Reduce Supply Chain costs”. I absolutely loved this job, I put everything I had learned into practice. I utilised tech to optimise the supply chain, along with my IT colleagues, we re-designed and implemented common system and operating procedures. This resulted in a 15% reduction in costs.

At this time in my career path I felt I needed more line management and contract management experience, so I joined a global LSP to manage and run a contract for an office stationery & equipment supplier. I then project managed & implemented a Supply Chain network for a major cigarette manufacturer in Poland. For this project, I was awarded the President Award along with a fully expenses trip to Whistler in Canada. For my final project, I was seconded and parachuted in to re-align a WMS implementation for a pottery manufacturer, this was a UK based, Global processing centre, this was my first real introduction to Automated warehousing. This project involved mapping the business processes, search for and select a new WMS provider and implement it into a 11,000 SKU, conveyor pick & pass operation into a Live operation. I was certainly never bored! 

I was determined to expand my experience, I joined the IT function of HJ Heinz as a Project Manager, after a successful ERP project in Dusseldorf, I was asked to sit on the Heinz Logistics Executive, having the overall responsibility for all Supply Chain related IT projects throughout Europe. This responsibility covered the end to end supply chain and included the integration of ERP, WMS, TMS, Production planning and scheduling systems.

I then moved to be an independent consultant, my first project was to implement an integrated WMS and TMS systems with an existing ERP platform on behalf of a Major Pet food manufacturer.

I was contacted directly by the cigarette manufacturer I had previously successfully project managed in Poland and was asked to review and optimise the cigarette supply chain in South Korea. After this 9-month project, I was asked to complete a similar optimisation exercise for Cigarette markets of Thailand, Malaysia, Australia and Ecuador.

I returned to Beans & Ketchup and Project Managed the implementation of a WMS system in Ireland integrating to the Heinz ERP system and the incumbents TMS system. This was a parachute project, where the selected WMS provider solution was actually “Vapourware”. The search & selection of a new WMS system through to systems integration, Implementation and go-live was completed within a 6-week period.

Premier Foods, Ireland, Green field NDC build to consolidate 4 businesses into one. SAP WM implementation integrated into 4 legacy ERP solutions.

I also, in addition to my interests with LOGURU, manage and operate a carpet re-cycling Company in the UK.

Current Aspirations 

To lead the development and build of a “best of the best” supply chain solution that steps out of silo optimisation into true end to end optimisation. I want this to be at a price point that means it is affordable for all and democratises optimisation, bringing it into the scope of SME businesses.

I want to continue my passions for success, supply chain excellence and optimisation.