The first week of July always sees the Annual General Meeting of the United Kingdom Warehousing Association (UKWA) followed by the yearly awards for achievement in the fields of storage and logistics. Once again this month’s event saw both happen in the palatial surroundings of London’s Dorchester Hotel where a who’s who of the warehouse and supply chain industry gathered to celebrate. An excellent lunch was sponsored by freight exchange Shipntrak whilst fork lift truck manufacturer Jungheinrich was the main awards sponsor.

Everyone attending expected the normal virtuoso performance from the presentation ceremony’s host; writer, broadcaster, former MP and Government Whip Gyles Brandreth, and none were disappointed. Mr Brandreth was on sparkling form including acting as auctioneer for someone present to take the option of ‘driving the biggest crane in the world’ at DP World’s London Gateway site, with the money going to transport charity Transaid.

Using little more than eloquence and insults Mr Brandreth managed to engineer a bidding war between Century Logistics and the Amethyst Group which eventually won, an achievement described by the host as ‘How exciting, you’ve just paid £1000 for 6 minutes in a crane’. In excess of a further £2,350 was raised by table donations to help the charity whose CEO Gary Forster thanked the assembled company and told how over 6,000 professional drivers had now been trained in Africa by Transaid. In addition, the implementation of more efficient supply chain management systems had seen ‘stock out’, that is wasted essential medicines and supplies, drop from a level of 78% to just 20%.

These supplies are the very things which lead the way toward defeating and curing some of the most common serious ailments which afflict the countries involved, such as Aids, TB and malaria. Mr Forster ponted out that in the last year six logistics companies had sponsored bicycles which can speed such essential items to outlying communities, raising enough to send two full container loads of the machines to the people that needed them.

As for the Awards themselves, three preceded the lunch with the others to follow. The winners in the appointed categories were:

Best New UKWA member: Sponsored by Toyota Material Handling – Fenland Haulage and Storage

Fenland were selected by the harshest of UKWA auditors ‘Inspector’ Charles Watt who found the company runs one of the most impressive storage outfits he has seen for some time.

Environment Award: Sponsored by Dexeco Solutions – Paul Ponsonby Limited

Developing from the smallest of bases this company has grown exponentially whilst managing to introduce driving and management policies which should see the company as carbon neutral in the next year.

Technical Innovation Award: Sponsored by Bito Storage Systems – Swisslog

The company impressed the judges with its ability to maximise the use of space with its Autostore solution, increasing picking efficiency and drastically reducing the area previously taken up by the same goods.