dormakaba UK/Ire

Angelo Dalporto is a seasoned Director of Operations and Supply Chain with regional profit and loss and budgetary responsibility alongside sustained global experience. He has substantial experience in the design, implementation and delivery of organisation wide staff engagement and continuous improvement methodologies and initiatives. Angelo Dalporto’s career objective is to use his proven leadership ability to design, implement and develop agile organsations lead by easily accessible business intelligence and data transparency. His passion is achieving this by driving true employee engagement and team cultural development while engineering robust sustainability across the entire supply chain.

In an exclusive interview with Manufacturing technology Insights Europe, Angelo Dalporto shared his invaluable insights regarding the changes and disruptions within the industry along the possible solutions.

Could you provide a brief overview of your experiences in the industry and your current role and responsibilities?

I currently serve as the Director of Operations and Supply Chain at dormakaba UK/Ire, which is an access control company. It deals, in a smart and efficient manner, with products and solutions that control, manage and limit access of people in order to keep the places that matter to you and me secure. I have 18 years of experience in the industry, and as part of dormakaba, I am responsible for UK and Ireland, which are two of the core countries in our group.

My responsibilities are diverse in nature, All quality, environmental, energy management and health and safety functions and management systems report into me. Alonside this I have reposnsbility for our assembly location, inventory management across the counry, all intercompany purchasing, freight and fleet coordination, facilities management country wide, our manufacturing engineering function and our newly established operational excellence team and business systems team.

How according to you has the industry recovered from the severe disruptions?

Disruptions have taken place both globally (the COVID-19 pandemic) and on local levels in each individual country. Global and local disruptions to the supply chains such as Covid, freight demand and pricing, electronic component shortages, geo-political instabilities and Brexithave been a major cause of concern. However, the overall situation has improved considerably over the last 12 months.,

“In the supply chain industry, it is important to see the big picture, solve problems, and find a way forward.”

However, the cost of living crisis / inflation surge that has rippled as a result, along with continued challenges in the labour market, in my view, have further instilled in companies the desire to become more productive and efficient. This is primarily because companies have realized that productivity and efficiency is instrumental in reducing labor shortages and stresses. They understand that if they are able to protect themselves from cost base and living cost increase, they would be able to add more value to their operations by reducing waste. Supply chain and operational functions, in this regard, have assumed a leading role in organizations, providing tools, techniques and methodologies for driving efficiency and productivity.

What would you say are some of the challenges that you see in the market today?

The cost base and the cost of living in supply chains has certainly increased significantly in the last two years. These are the essentially fallouts from burgeoning cost of freight resulting from the pandemic, utility costs like cost of fuel and energy have skyrocketed, and although the prices are decreasing, the likelihood of them returning to previous levels is low.

Decarbonizing the supply chain and focusing on environmental sustainability has become a major priority for companies which despite being a noble aim, entails substantial expenses. Decarbonization, indeed, does not always have a positive impact on the bottom line in the immediate future if viewed purely from a short term cost benefit lens. Labor shortages, too, stand as a challenge owing to the presence of highly mobile workforces and shift in people’s work-life balance. As mentioned earlier, the emphasis on productivity and efficiency is the best way to tackle these problems.

Lastly, the rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) necessitates supply chain and operational functions to make the effort to understand the new AI models, scrutinizing ways of leveraging them in ethical and effective ways. There is also the need to know the impact these AI models can have in terms of shift in labor structures and redeploying and retraining people.

What are some of the strategies that you employ to leverage the technological advancements that are coming into supply chain management?

The supply chain management industry does not necessarily always need to be at the cutting-edge of technological advancements like AI, because In most instances  we do not utilize those technologies that are readily available in our daily operations. For example, citizen development can increase productivity and efficiency. This involves people in an organization learning to utilize the technological platforms and tools that they have at their disposal, without always requiring the aid of IT professionals. It also means that organizations need to make access rights to these tools and platforms more widely available to its members in order to unlock this potential.

In my opinion, businesses tend to become preoccupied with new technologies that have not yet been made available. In the process, we forget that several innovative technological tools – like Microsoft Office, power automate, process advisor, Teams environments, etc. – already exist  and are at our disposal which and can be used to increase efficiency.  

Moreover, it is important that we learn about new technological capabilities, deploy them on our own where possible and use them to increase our productivity.

What would be your advice to budding professionals in the supply chain management industry?

My advice to individuals venturing into the supply chain management industry would be to keep an open mind. Observing various processes personally in the factory or office space, and understanding the principles of problem solving, process mapping, lean principles, deming cycle, the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) etc are vital. In the supply chain industry, it is important to see the big picture in order to solve problems and find a way forward.

In addition, in the supply chain industry it is imperative to talk to people and build relationships. Despite the growing usage of AI and automation, it is crucial to get people enagaged and ensure that they are bought in to what you are trying to achieve. Building relationships, understanding the big picture, problem solving, facilitating and coordinating are skills supply chain professionals should cultivate, since these skills allow them to bring all elements of the business together and get the desired outcome.