Mr. Tony de Livera – SLFFA Chairman says – “Knowledge & Skills Development is the need of the hour in our Industry”
Freight Forwarders Association (Founded 1981) was jointly establish with the support from UNESCAP and FIATA (Federation of International Freight Forwarders Association, Zurich, Estb.1929) to enhance the professional knowledge and career development of Sri-Lankans serving in the Freight and Logistics Industry.
Today, Globalization has been the most prominent factor driving the increase in the number of companies in the global market place. This necessitates a broader perspective than when operating as an international company, which may include, amongst others, attributes such as global branding, global sourcing, global production, centralization of inventories and centralization of information.
All of these aspects serve to emphasize the added difficulty of operating effectively in a global environment. Logistics and supply-chain networks have become far more complicated, and meeting the need to plan and manage logistics as a complete and integrated system has become far more difficult. Because of this, the best solution for a global company is very often to outsource its logistics operations.
Mr. Tony de Livera Chairman of SLFFA goes onto say, If Sri-Lanka is to take advantage, of its unique geographical slot in the Indian-sub-continent region as the gateway for transiting goods in the supply chain pipeline from the two cost effective production giants CHINA & INDIA in the coming century, it has to have the foresight in planning towards becoming a logistics services –HUB en-cashing into the growth of the Indian economy ,our closest economic power house, in the way of operating and developing most modern logistics infrastructure with state of the art warehousing facilities combined with integrated information and supply chain solutions, like in the manner which today Singapore is for the ASEAN region, a complete stock-house covering vast numbers of inventories, allowing buyers and sellers prompt sourcing and to have the shortest delivery circles for their goods and raw-materials within ASIA, where manufacturing can be done on a ‘Just-in-time’ (JIT) concept, cutting major lead-times for bringing their products to the global market.
Therefore, training and developing the knowledge and skills in our human resources, by adding another career opportunity to the job market in the supply Chain Management field is the need of the hour and should receive national level priority from Govt. and Merchant sectors of the economy.
The Sri-Lanka Freight forwarders Association, is the apex body representing the forwarding industry in Sri-Lanka affiliated to FIATA, has already embarked on the knowledge and skills training mission through AITT it’s professional training arm, which is ably run by its CEO Mr. Peter Barbut a veteran in the Industry.
AITT is a non-profit making academy as its main objective is to bring-in professional knowledge through its training courses which are based on international curriculum supported by FIATA and UNESCAP. Which will contribute to uplift the industry standards to international level in Sri-Lanka and giving more opportunity to young people for developing a Logistics/Supply Chain Management career, in one of the most rapidly developing global industries. Where supply chain solutions brings in a competitive edge in today’s global manufacturing and distribution sector.