SLFFA Cargo Services adds value to customers

Round Table Discussion (from left): Supply Chain Consultant Gayani de Alwis (Moderator), SLFFACSL Chairman Diren Hallock, Dart Global Logistics MD Mohan Mohanadas, Scanwell Freight Express Colombo MD Nemantha Hatharasinghe, DHL Global Forwarding Lanka Head of Marketing and Sales Ahmed Ur Rahman, JKH President Transportation Sector Romesh David, MAS Active Head of Commercial and Logistics Sean Van Dort, MAS Intimates Manager Imports Senaka Pinto, ABC Pharma MD Adrian Basnayake, Ministry of Finance Consultant Dr. Neville Gunawardane and Sri Lankan Worldwide Cargo Operations Senior Manager Janaka Munasinghe

SLFFA Cargo Services Ltd (SLFFACSL) organised a full day workshop for their clients on 13 May at JAIC Hilton hotel under the theme ‘Driving business growth through competitive supply chains’.  The workshop was attended by their clients, freight forwarders and representatives from Government authorities. 

SLFFA Cargo Services Ltd Chairman Diren Hallock in his welcome address spelt out the objectives of the workshop and stated that this is a landmark occasion for SLFFACSL as they brought all stakeholders under one roof for the first time to understand the current challenges and as a group how everyone should collaborate seamlessly to solve issues in their trade.

Minister of Finance Ravi Karunanayake in his address to the audience assured that the Government is committed to bring in all authorities engaged in import and export clearance to operate within a single window to facilitate faster and seamless clearance of cargo. The Minister further stressed that although he is supportive of regulatory reforms, he gave a stern warning to miscreants not to violate the system. He also commended SLFFACSL for organising such a workshop by bringing all stakeholders together to challenge and resolve issues for the industry and make Sri Lanka a competitive place for cargo operations.

The workshop was facilitated by Supply Chain Consultant Gayani de Alwis. She started by giving an overall understanding on the big picture on how supply chain and logistics can contribute to business growth in an organisation and the need to invest in such professionals to achieve business results. She was followed by a guest lecture by Ahmed Ur Rahman of DHL Global Forwarding Lanka, who shared best practices in air cargo logistics and especially new techniques for ensuring integrity of packaging and the equipment used in ground handling. Both these talks were very engaging and were well received by the audience.

The key feature of the workshop was the moderated round table discussion consisting of heads of leading freight forwarding companies, representatives from top customers of SLFFACSL, namely ABC Pharma MD Adrian Basnayake, MAS Active Head of Commercial and Logistics Sean Van Dort, MAS Intimates Manager Imports Senaka Pinto, Sri Lankan Worldwide Cargo Operations Senior Manager Janaka Munasinghe, Ministry of Finance Consultant and former Director General of Customs Dr. Neville Gunawardane, which turned out to be quite illuminating for participants.

Some of the key takeouts from the round table discussion were for SLFFACSL to take the lead to push for regulatory reforms, the need for end to end value stream mapping for all government authorities which are engaged in the clearance of cargo to eliminate repetitive non value adding activities, create awareness at ground handling level through focused programs, operationalisation of ‘single window’ concept, support to implement best practices in cargo handling.  

SLFFACSL plans to organise similar focused programs catering to their clients in the future.

SLFFACS is a consortium of public unlisted companies comprising mostly of the leading freight forwarders in Sri Lanka and has been in existence for more than two decades since 1994. The company core business is providing common user facilities for the freight forwarding and logistics industry in Sri Lanka. Towards this purpose it has been successfully operating an import air cargo terminal at BIA-Katunayake since 1994, providing valuable service to importers for import air cargo. 

More recently they have set up the trade portal to facilitate e-trading in the form of E-booking and E-Airway bill transmission based on their tie up with Cargo Community Network, Singapore (CCN). Future plans involve the extension of their services to cater to the import Less than Container Load (LCL) sea cargo, where they plan to operate a state of the art facility ideally within the port to provide fast and safe handling which all importers are badly in need of.