Polar science is a fascinating area, drawing explorers to the Antarctic for centuries. It’s an area that remains filled with secrets – secrets that British Antarctic Survey (BAS) aims to uncover for the sake of curiosity-driven science and our changing environment. As a world-leading research institute, BAS needs a solid supply chain to support its activities. When the organisation wanted to modernise and expand its existing team, it brought in Simon Lancaster, Head of Supply Chain Logistics.
Lancaster has almost 30 years of experience in fast-moving consumer goods across retail, food, and technology logistics. He’s worked with big brands like Tesco, IKEA, Marks & Spencer, and Unipart. He was with the latter business for 13 years, working his way up to Sector Director for the logistics part of the organisation.
Lancaster was taking care of the technology sector and later charged with its successful expansion into the Middle East. Then he started considering what he really wanted career-wise. He was in a position where he had already experienced a broad variety of roles with Unipart and, with only two roles above him – MD and CEO – he questioned whether that path, or a return to previous roles in the UK, was what he wanted. His options were either to go back to the Middle East, or look for something that meant more to him.
“This opportunity with BAS came up, and I thought what they did was fascinating,” he says. “It’s a really unique supply chain challenge, but it’s a better balance for me. It is demanding, but I create a lot of pressure myself because I want to improve things for BAS and support what they’re trying to achieve. It’s about being able to add some value to a worthwhile organisation, and support BAS as they move into the next decades of infrastructural and supply chain modernisation in support of world leading polar science.”
Assessing the landscape
When Lancaster joined BAS two years ago, the supply chain landscape looked very different to now. He knew immediately that what BAS needed more than anything was supply chain visibility. The organisation was bereft of a proper ERP system, and that’s something Lancaster was keen to change.
“We have an enterprise asset management system – an IBM Maximo piece of software – which is used globally. It’s a very powerful asset management system, and the application of that hadn’t happened in relation to supply chain when I started,” he explains. “It’s something I wanted to change, so we could get systemic visibility of the ordering and supply chain storage and distribution process. That’s critical for us. The mantra I have outside my vision – which is to be the best supply chain logistics provider for polar science – is ‘buy less, move less, store less’. We simply didn’t have the visibility and data I’ve come to expect in a supply chain. Our data was spreadsheet-based and too much information was in people’s heads rather than written down.”
Ushering in a change
With Lancaster’s guidance, BAS collapsed all of the disparate storage sites into one and was even able to move into the warehouse a quarter early. His team ensured the new site was ready with desks and bespoke uniforms, making the transition a seamless one. Hot on the heels of that success, Lancaster and his team decided to implement the first module of the new supply chain system.
“Everybody was already adjusting to the changing of the team, location, and processes, so we thought we might as well add the new system into the mix, because the net additional risk was relatively low,” he explains. “Plus, we still had legacy systems that needed changing quickly.”
So, very quickly, all activity was brought under one roof with a new system and a wealth of shared knowledge at the team’s fingertips. “We introduced some standardised ways of working, some repeatable processes that were capable and reliable, ensuring quality in what we’re trying to do. With a single system, a single warehouse, new efficiencies being shared by a new team with a lot of knowledge invested in them, we had the confidence to really get this ship sailing.”
