James Bertram-Smith

Driven self starter, capable of creating and managing teams.

Returning to the UK from an 18 months working visa in New Zealand working for Suntory.

11 years’ experience working in demand planning/inventory management in retail, production and B2B environments. 

13 years in the British Army Reserve working in high stress and fast past environments managing communications and IT across the globe. 

Last Full Time Role: 

Senior Inventory Controller – Frucor Suntory (Nov 2022 – Nov 2023)

1 year fixed term contract.

(promoted during restructure to ‘Senior’)

Main responsibilities

• Direct line manager of 3 stock controllers working on a 24hr shift pattern
  • These personnel conduct cycle counts of 33,000 pallet spaces / $22.5M of inventory in the distribution centre, conduct many ad-hoc checks, reports and movements across the entire Asia-Pacific network in order to meet KPIs.
• Responsible for all Auckland sites inventory accuracy 
  • Processing and auditing transactions to find errors
  • Correcting behaviour to increase stock accuracy and limit write off
• Influencing and collaborating with key stakeholders across:
  • Operations, Quality, Production, Planning and Sales to;
    • Maintain operational warehouse capacity
    • Maintain stock accuracy and integrity
    • Feedback on business process, improvement projects and manging risk
• Master Data responsibility
  • Responsible for setting up finished goods SKUs within EWM/S4 (SAP)
  • All warehouse data created per SKU, eg fixed bins, replenishment data per storage type, voice picking settings ect..
• Main achievements:
  • Recruited, trained and set up a new team and work pattern after restructure
  • Monthly count compliance up from 40% avg to 99.9% avg
  • Stock accuracy recorded at 95% (not previously maintained)
  • Created better working patterns and good practice to prevent large amounts of returns and misc pallets from clogging up warehouse space. 
  • Reduced write offs by creating patterns of checks to unblock saleable stock and send short dated stock to staff shops to clear. 
  • Increased warehouse capacity by implementing blocked bin checks to free up unnecessarily blocked bins. 
  • Part of the implementation of Laser Guided Vehicle project into the DC bulk storage area. 
  • Member of the senior leadership team of the warehouse contributing towards overall success of the facility. 
  • Conducted inventory and SAP training across other sites across Auckland, New Zealand and Australian warehouse counterparts. 

Previous Roles:

Inventory Manager - David Phillips Furniture Ltd (Jan 2022 – Sep 2022)

Main responsibilities

• Direct line manager of 2 supervisors
  • 8 FTEs reporting to me in total
• Responsible for business wide stock holding and purchasing
  • Project and regular inventory
  • C.£18m of purchasing per year
  • 3 warehouses and additional 3rd party sites
• Responsible for creating and maintaining all inventory processes
  • Demand planning
  • PO/data maintenance 
  • Availability metrics
  • Reducing tail of range
  • Clearing surplus/excess stock
  • Bespoke purchasing
  • UK, EU, Far East suppliers and distributors
    • Freight/container management
    • Import/Export regulations
  • ERP system processes
• Engaging with key stakeholders
  • Updating senior figures, directors, CEO/CFO/COO
  • Engaging operational and sales teams
• Main achievements
  • Reduced surplus/excess stock holding by £1.2m
  • Development of demand planning software
    • Availability avg up from 85% to 96%

Demand Planning Supervisor - David Phillips Furniture Ltd (Jan 2021 – Dec 2021)

Main responsibilities

• Line manager of three stock co-ordinators
• Regular stock availability / managing temporary items
• Liaising with Ops and Sales teams 
• Managing supplier performance and addressing key issues
• Maintaining and improvement of the forecasting and reporting processes
• Data maintenance
• Managing containers from China / liaising with forwarders 
• Management of new/exiting ranges

Lead Distributor (various categories) – WH Smith Travel Head Office London (Jan 2016 – Jan 2021)

Main responsibilities

• Demand Planning/Sales forecasting/Stock Forecasting
• Network optimisation projects (Delivery and planning)
• Managing critical paths
• Developing planning tools and applications
• Reporting (Stock/Sales/efficiencies)
• Leading/training a team of distributors
• Line managing administrators and direct reports 
• Setting and achieving stock targets / OTB
• Supplier Engagement / Performance tracking
• Liaising with warehouse teams to manage throughput
• Managing store replenishment levels

Formal Education (further detail available upon request): 

2010 - 2013      : 2:1 BSc Global Logistics and Transport - Coventry University

2008 - 2010      : A-Levels – 230 UCAS points - Ravens Wood School.

2003 - 2008      : GCSE’s – 10 A-C including English and Maths.