It has been already a month ago but on October 3 & 4 Amsterdam was the center of Project Freight. On these days PFN – Project Freight Net held its second annual conference PFN2017. The conference has been held in the historic IGC – Industrial “Groote” Club which is an exclusive business club situated right at the Dam Square in the heard of Amsterdam right across the Royal Palace.
PFN members from all over globe were attending the annual conference to learn from industry experts who were presenting and discussing the current market situation as well as some more technical aspects of the project freight industry. The consensuses was that this years gathering has been a great success and all members returned home with one or more additional opportunities to work with as well as connected with other members and or new members.
AIG, Mr. Jan Rietberg (Regional Loss Control Manager – Marine Europe West and South zone) has een presenting discussing the aspects of the risk control management and the importance for insurance companies in having control over the manner of lashing, loading, lifting etc.
AIG is an transport and cargo insurance company that is covering a large portion of the project freight that is being shipped throughout the world and has developed itself to a first class insurance and risk management company. Many of the customers of our network members offer insurances to their customers and in the near future they can do so as a group through the XELLZ Insurance Group, that has been created for this purpose.
Evert van den Brink (Commercial Manager) from Spliethoff presented the latest capacity and vessel specs of the Spliethoff group of companies. This has been surprising to most members t
hat the company group is so diverse and capable of shipping almost anything through either Spliethoff Shipping, Sevenstar Yacht Transport, BigLift, Wijnne Barends, Transfennica or Bore.
Spliethoff was established in 1921 as specialist in dry cargo and multipurpose vessels and has grown from there into a global shipping company. Spliethoff alone is operating over 50 vessels.
CargoLogicManagement
Mr. Alan Baldwin ( Manager – Business Development) of CLM – CargoLogicsManagement based in London, UK. CLM is the management company for Airlines as Volga Dnepr (VD), CargoLogicAir (CLA) and AirBridgeCargo (ABC), ATRAN and AMTES.
CargoLogicManagement provides management and sales services for a leading Group of international all-cargo airlines, operating a combined fleet of over 40 wide and narrow-body freighters including Boeing 747F, Boeing 737F, and the unique capabilities of the outsized Antonov-124 and Ilyushin-76 heavy-lift fleet.
CLM presented a different picture whereby statistics of member opportunities and possible near future opportunities were discussed. The Airline business is going further then ever before and CLM is connected to those companies that investigating new frontiers and new business models to gain more solutions for its customers and gaining more market share as any company would.
Panel Discussions:
At the end of Day 1 we conducted a panel discussion where many topics were addressed from economic uncertainties to new opportunities in the near future now that the Oil prices are over USD50 per barrel.
Also the risk involved when customers are not willing to invest in a quality freight forwarder or management company. Issues with air freight of oversized and overweight cargo as well as the challenge to come up with new products in today’s volatile industry and markets. Topics as “do airlines rather be contacted by the forwarder then directly by the shippers, to innovation in packing or perhaps the lack of that. Does a down-turned economy change the way companies handle and pack their cargo and has AIG seen an increase in claims because of that?
All questions that were answered and discussed by the members in a very active session.
PFN – Presentation
On the second day Amanda Labee (Vice President Operations) of PFN presented some interesting topics during the morning session whereby an earlier distributed survey had been discussed to see where our members want PFN to set its priorities for 2018.
The PFN Magazine has been discussed and it seems that a majority of the members is for this initiative whereby the hard copy magazines shall be distributed at trade shows of the industries, Breakbulk events and also during the training sessions. Estimated number of readers is well over 55.000.
Off course there were also the one-on-one meeting that had been scheduled by PFN in order to ensure all members would be meeting with all other members. This scheduling is not an easy task however very productive and ensures that any and all opportunities are discussed.
The evening program was wel organized and we believe that all members has a great time. There was plenty of drinks, food and entertainment with a signer for the first half of the evening and a saxophone player for the second half of the evening.
Last but not least was there a surprise visit from best selling author and productivity guru, David Allen who spoke to the group and presented a copy of his book, “Getting Things Done” which he personally signed for each guest.
A great conference and we are already looking forward to the next of which dates will be communicated soon.
