It’s about ensuring colleagues across all functions have aligned objectives and a joined-up approach to delivery.

Our supply chain involves many moving parts, and we need to consider everything from plant demand to fuel availability and all the supporting operations. Successful delivery means collaborating across all teams – including procurement, transport, contracts, operations, quality management and finance.

A good example of this approach arose over the Christmas period. This year Christmas fell over two weeks with multiple Bank Holidays rolling in to weekdays. Our teams co-ordinated to construct a day-by-day plan of all inbound and outbound movements and operational requirements and worked with the plants and suppliers to ensure they were fully integrated into the plan. Then they continued to work together throughout Christmas to execute it, using daily conference calls and planning tools to monitor the status and inform our plan for the following day. By working as One Team we were successful in meeting our customers’ requirements, delivering all fuel orders on every day of the festive period including Christmas Day itself and New Year’s Day, with a total of over 1500 deliveries On Time In Full during the fortnight.