BIFA Awards
Passionate about problem solving
After completing a degree in Scots law, Michael Shiels wanted a change of pace. He found it on a graduate scheme at DHL, and was among the 2023 BIFA Young Freight Forwarder of the Year fi nalists
Young Freight Forwarder Award
Virgin Atlantic Cargo is proud to sponsor BIFA’s Young Freight
the end of last year. “We have a Responsible Person in London, but I have been brought in to support compliance for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Manchester,” he said. Michael is still on the graduate scheme at DHL and hopes to secure a permanent role soon, where he can continue to put his problem- solving skills to use. developing and retaining talented young people and is confident this award will help to attract more recruits that want to build a future career in a sector that is so important to the economy and international trade. Forwarder Award to recognise and encourage the next generation of industry leaders. As well as rewarding the progress of the best young people, this award helps to highlight the vital role freight forwarders play in the growth and development of the industry. VAC recognises the importance of
“I am passionate about problem solving,” said Michael Shiels – and much of his work at DHL Global Forwarding (UK) has revolved around just that. “A lot of what I have been doing is improvement projects on the business,” he explained. “Last year I was involved in UK-wide projects on digitalisation, improving transit times, and increasing the ef fi ciency of DHL’s complaints handling process.” Michael likened DHL’s problem solving tool to the Six Sigma method. “There is training to become a bronze, silver or gold champion; I am one of a handful in the company who have reached advisor level.” He loves teaching his colleagues to embrace tools such as 5 Whys, Gemba Walks, and 5S, because he
“ A lot of what I have been doing is improvement projects on the business – Michael Shiels, DHL
fi nds “a structured approach to problems always creates the best solutions”. He is also trained to facilitate a two-day course about the values, ethos and history of DHL for new staff. When he spoke to BIFAlink in February, Michael was looking forward to undertaking a Responsible Person training course in Oxford to support the new pharmaceutical compliance project that he started at
Menzies LLP provides financial and accounting expertise, combined with strategic commercial thinking. We understand your business via our in-depth sector knowledge and use a consultancy-led approach to challenge your objectives and guide your business growth. Each of our clients experiences our Brighter Thinking approach, the difference we make to our clients. With our in depth transport and logistics sector experience we promise to add real value across key areas of our clients’ businesses – to go further than just balancing the books. APPRENTICE OF THE YEAR AWARD Taking a statistical approach While a passion for statistics may not be the obvious route into a career in logistics, it seems to be working pretty well for BIFA Apprentice of the Year fi nalist Kieran Elkin
“Working with statistics is my favourite thing to be doing,” said Kieran Elkin, who studied maths at university before joining Dachser UK. “I have regularly been called upon to provide analysis of raw data and numbers in scenarios involving a prospective customer, or for gaining insights into current operations.” He has also designed an Excel interface to support the sales team. “I created tools using Visual Basic coding,” Kieran explained. “The sales team used to ask our department to create tariffs manually and send them
proactive approach, youth and relatively short time spent using the old system made him an ideal choice for the project. Kieran finished his apprenticeship in September 2023 and became a junior controller for his branch. Since this article was written, Kieran has joined Rhenus Logistics as a business finance analyst.
back. Now they can do it themselves, and it takes five minutes instead of multiple days. Customers are impressed; it means a lot to them.” In addition to his core responsibilities, Kieran helped with Dachser UK’s migration to Microsoft Teams and Outlook. His
18 | October 2024
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