The greatest opportunities for change in the South African transport industry lie not in improvement of infrastructure but in investment in education and training.At the heart of supply chain management (SCM) is the integration of functions and the breaking down of silos for the purpose of focusing the organisation’s efforts on satisfying customer needs.Missing from the South African context are the universal recognition of this need for total integration and customer focus and the competencies needed to create and implement strategies, processes and procedures that can drive such a system.This gap presents substantial opportunities to establish an education and training infrastructure aimed at bringing these elements together at all levels and across all fields.The result will be a totally integrated South African transport industry which is customer centred, highly automated, connected, situationally aware and data-enabled.The establishment of a strong SCM competency pool is what will attract the resources required to rehabilitate and expand the transport infrastructure to meet the needs of exponential growth in trade.The most encouraging thing about this is that, right now, we have everything needed to achieve this vision.Charles is a training consultant, international supply chain management and logistics. He is a pioneer in the transport industry’s education and training field who has been instrumental in the creation and implementation of a number of standards, qualification and delivery innovations, both in South Africa and internationally.
