Gordon Brace

GORDON BRACE Bsc MSc FCILT FMS MIOM has been Chairman of Burman Associates since 1984. He trained as an Industrial Engineer with HJ Heinz Company and at Acton Technical College (Now Brunel University) and studied for his MSc in Engineering Production and Management at Birmingham University. He was for three years with the British Iron and Steel Federation and subsequently held various senior appointments including Chief Production Engineer of Bowater's box-making division, Head of Group Planning, then Group Distribution Manager, then Director of Operations of Watney Mann Brewery Group, General Manager of the National Exhibition Centre in its opening year and Managing Director of the Distribution Division of Automotive Products PLC.

His consultancy work has majored on supply chain strategies, quick response, negotiations, franchising, distribution planning and control and time compression. He has served many companies including London Transport, the Post Office, the Dana Corporation, Nuffield Trust, Lucas Automotive, Hassy, Whitworth Foods, Victoria Wine, Whitbreads, Scottish and Newcastle, TVS Suzuki and many more.

A founder member of the original Institute of Distribution Management, now incorporated in the CILT, he has lectured widely, chaired many conferences, edited Logistics Technology International and Business Process Retailing, chaired BSI MS/3 Committee (Logistics in Production and Distribution), contributed to the Logistics Directors' Forum, and was awarded the Sir Robert Lawrence Award for services to logistics in 1993. He is Associate Fellow of WMG, Professor Bhattacharyya's manufacturing group at the University of Warwick, where he led the Supply Chain element of the EU research programme ‘Future Working Structures’ (of the Automotive industry), initiated the DTI’s ‘Time Compression Programme’ and has latterly worked on the creation of the Masters programme MSc SEAL (Supply Engineering and Logistics).