Rob O’Byrne recently met up with Ian Menzies who must have one of the ‘dream jobs’ in Logistics.

Now if you think you’ve got Supply Chain problems, imagine trying to Supply a Luxury resort that is on island, how far off the main land?

Ian: Not far out, probably about 8-12 km off the main land.

Rob: 12 km off the main land, so what are we talking about? We are talking to Ian Menzies, who’s the Group Supply Chain Manager for Hamilton Island Resorts. So Ian, this is fascinating, we’ve been having a chat about Supply Chain and the difficulties of normal Supply Chains. Tell us a bit about supplying an island resort?

Ian: Thanks Rob, I’ve been there for about 4 to 8 months now and it is a little unique in a way that we can’t have deliveries coming to us in any time of the day and it should be scheduled with our barge operations which runs twice a day. We’ve got a 350 tons barge that basically supports for everything that it needs, and we were talking earlier about everything from toilet papers to French Champagne but there’s also aviation fuels and building materials to support the island. It’s a big place, where we can have an excess of 6,000 people, we’ve got a marina that carries nearly 300 boats and people are coming and going with that. So now, it’s quite a challenging task but a good one.

Rob: Well, it sounds fascinating. Sorry, if you don’t know where Hamilton Island is, we’re talking about a luxury resort off the coast of QLD and Australia. We were talking earlier and I said, ‘Oh! You must be base in some sort of office in Brisbane?’ and he said ‘No, No, I’m in the resort’. So tell us about some of the peaks and troughs that you get because some of the Supply Chains do have seasonal peaks and troughs and it must be really tricky for you.

Ian: Yes, certainly I have peaks and troughs driven by the tourist market, I guess. And then a range special events that we have through the year, so some of your blog viewers will know of Hamilton race week which is one of Australia, and even internationally a premium kind of yacht regatta which is held up in the week’s Sunday. And that can make the island really bulging as it seems. The other weeks is like a 1o-day regatta, the other weeks are literally, we do a semi trial of beer a week, normally. For race week, we double that without naming any brands, you’re not affiliated with any beer producers. But we do 10 pallets of Corona, 6 tons of beefs between literally 800 kl of salmon and various other things, just statistics that make your eyes water. I guess the difference is that we’re dealing with a brand that is all about delivering a top quality product so they can’t be compromised, we can’t run an excuse like ‘Oh! Sorry we run out of that champagne’ or something like that but what keeps me awake at night is running out of toilet paper, so we’ve got about 3 weeks worth of that and I’m having it parachuted in if it looks like we’re running out.

Rob: If you have never been to Hamilton Island Resort, we’ll put a link below so you can take a look at this place and it’s sensational.

Ian: We’re always looking for good forklift operators, we might not pay the top rate for a forklift operator, but you do live in a very nice part of the world.

Rob: Thanks very much for sharing that with us.

This is where Ian works: Hamilton Island