Quick Links:

• Events - The current schedule of events demonstrates the broad and diverse range of operations management activities within the Scotland region
• About Us - To find out more about IOM Scotland and the people behind it

If you can help us, please get in touch. We would also welcome and appreciate your ideas for making IOM Scotland events successful. Let us know which topics interest you.

Professor Neil S Towers FIOM
Chair – IOM Scotland
Email: isr@iomnet.org.uk

Do More For Less - the Productivity Challenge 

IOM members and guests visited Oracle’s Executive Briefing Center in Linlithgow, the worlds largest business software that specialises in enterprise software and now hardware products, and is the No. 1 player in many product and industry markets.

The Director of Oracle Scotland gave a talk on the company’s transformative journey to strip excess costs from the business. This was achieved through consolidation, simplification, global processes, shared services and the use of standardised products. As well as achieving cost savings of around $2 billion over a 10 year period, Oracle benefited from increased visibility and more powerful business intelligence.

The transformative payoff of the project was the ability to scale the business without increasing costs, thereby driving the holy grail of sustainable and profitable growth. That further fueled an enviable capability to acquire and integrate companies to further propel revenue growth and their current success. It was an inspiring session indeed!

This was followed by some light refreshments and a chance to network with other members, as well as a tour of Executive Briefing Centre which houses demo versions of some of its ‘coolest’ technology.

IOM Scotland Branch visit to Caledonian Brewery

A full house of 15 Scottish IOM members along with Heriot-Watt Masters students in Logistics and Supply Chain Management visited the Caledonian Brewery in Edinburgh, not normally open to the public. The home of Deuchars IPA and Caledonian 80/-, it is now Edinburgh’s sole surviving brewery. A team of highly skilled brewers and passionately dedicated individuals carry on the tradition of brewing ale in a Victorian brew house that remains relatively unchanged since its opening in 1869. Craig Steven, Caledonian’s Operations Manager who has been with the brewery for the past 13 years, explained the challenges of managing spikes in demand for cask-conditioned ales, which have a shelf life of only 3 days once the publican connects it to the tap, compared to 8 weeks for keg beers. The brewery recently implemented 5S, the Japanese workplace organisation tool, in order to increase efficiency. Participants then took a tour of the brewery and learnt about the traditional brewing process, from global sourcing of hops to the recycling of waste by-products. We finished up with a chance to network and sample Caledonian’s beers in the brewery’s Sample Cellar.