Port Infrastructure with Arénso Bakker

Bryndis Whitson: [00:00:03] Hi, my name is Bryndis Whitson, and you're listening to the Zebras to Apples podcast, the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. My guest for this episode is with my friend Arénso Bakker. Arénso and I met because we sat next to each other at a Canada / Netherlands roundtable and have been chatting ever since. Arénso lives in the Netherlands and has worked around the world on projects that improve supply chains. This includes the Panama and Suez canals and the port of Rotterdam, which is Europe's largest seaport. What I love about this conversation and chatting with Lorenzo in general, is it showcases the interconnection that we have in the world and how much we can learn from one another as conversations with friends go, we started chatting before we officially began the recording, so immediately we jump in and talk about projects happening in the Netherlands. You never know where you're going to meet new people who become really good friends that you chat with around the world. Join us on a conversation that highlights supply chain logistics and port infrastructure from the Netherlands to Panama, and everywhere in between. Arènso Bakker: [00:00:40] The mainstream of goods coming into the Netherlands are transferred to Germany, to France or to Belgium. So we are a gate to Europe, and I think Canada is more a gate to itself. So you're receiving a lot of goods. And then of course, so if you, if you look at logistics and supply chain, it's very much about you can have a distribution center for local needs. So people from all the shops and all the food you need, but you can also have, and that's what we have in the Netherlands, it's a regional distribution center and they are there to receive goods, store them, and then distribute them all over Europe. And of course Europe is has about the same size as Canada, maybe even smaller, but so that's a different type of logistics. So it's completely if you receive goods for the last mile to transport into a city or into a few towns, or that you receive goods to transport them to other countries within a region. And the second one is, so receiving goods, transport them to certain regions, that gives the option to add some value to make local, to defer, to change the goods into typical goods for a certain country, and that's in the past that's always the interesting part of regional European distribution centers adding value. What was the most important one? Because then you create jobs. That's the main reason. All the local governments wanted European distribution centers in their municipality. Bryndis Whitson: [00:02:16] Yeah, exactly. Arènso Bakker: [00:02:18] Yeah. And a lot of things have changed there recently because for instance, in the Netherlands, we have a huge problem in hunting people working in distribution centers. And then so then you have to ask people to come from abroad, from Poland, from Romania, from Bulgaria into the Netherlands to work in the distribution centers. And then, of course, it's not generating jobs anymore. I mean, there are jobs, but not jobs for people in the Netherlands. And people in Netherlands are not available anymore for working in distribution centers. So then the question is why do you want to have distribution centers if it is not helping your local economy? Bryndis Whitson: [00:02:56] Oh, yeah. Arènso Bakker: [00:02:57] Then just have them in Germany or something. But not the Netherlands anymore. Because people find them ugly, they don't like the traffic, and I remember when I was driving around in Canada, I drove behind a truck and on the back of the truck it said, sick of this truck, buy less s**t. That was just the same in Canada as well. People don't like like the traffic jams. Don't like the maybe the ugly buildings around the highways. That's also happening here in the Netherlands. So there's no license to operate anymore to have these huge XXL distribution centers in the Netherlands, if they're not meant for local distribution. That's, I think, the big thing. It's everybody understands that if you have supermarkets, you have the transport needs and you need local distribution centers. But if you talk transnational ones, they don't like it anymore. And then, so for instance, if you look at at the port of Rotterdam, Port of Rotterdam is a huge port area, a lot of containers coming in. And maybe 20 years ago everybody said, yeah, if these containers come in by ship from Asia and you put them on a train and you, and the train goes to Germany, why have this port? Because there's not a lot of benefits for the city of Rotterdam, for instance. So then everybody started building these distribution centers to have some to create value, to have some advantage of having these distribution centers nearby because it's created jobs. Arènso Bakker: [00:04:24] And nowadays it's turned around because there are no people available anymore. So then there's no need to have this distribution centers in Rotterdam anymore. So then you put the containers back on the train and ship them to Germany. Yeah. That's actually, that changed in the past 15 years a lot. But it also can sometimes because I have a great example which is Lelystad or in the middle of the Netherlands we have boulders, this new created land used to be a sea, and we just made land of it. So it's below sea level and they created a few new cities on Lelystad. And if you just in the middle of nowhere in agricultural land, create a city, then you also have have to create jobs because people living there, and either they have to travel a long way to work or you create local jobs. And that's that was the ambition of the city council to create a logistic area, to create jobs in that area near Lelystad. And their vision was to attract all kind of supply chain goods coming from Asia or whatever. And then before they would go to Germany, you would store them in Lelystad, and from there it could be transported to Germany. But the thing is that Lelystad is not on the route to Germany, so that concept would not work. And the other thing is, there was no infrastructure. Arènso Bakker: [00:05:47] So why why have a distribution center or logistics in that in that area, if there's no there's no railway, there's no there's no barge terminal and so on. So the idea was let's create a barge terminal. And this barge terminal is very attractive for companies to be based next to the barge terminal to be able to use the infrastructure of the barge terminal. So that was the idea. But then you have a chicken and egg problem because if you create a barge terminal but there are no companies, then this barge terminal will never make money because there are no containers coming in. But if you don't have a barge terminal, then the companies won't come. So chicken egg, you have to solve that solution. And then we took our strategy was to start with local. Local transport need. And that was agricultural, was potatoes, onions carrots. And we started exporting them. So instead of importing stuff and shipping them to Germany, we started exporting all these agricultural stuff. Potatoes, onions, carrots. And they went to Africa. They went everywhere. So it was a huge stream of containers. And by shifting these containers from the roads all the way to Rotterdam to a barge, there was volume for the barge terminal. So the barge terminal could start with this local volume, export volume. And that was the start of the barge terminal. So there was a barge terminal based on existing good flows. Bryndis Whitson: [00:07:15] Oh, wow. Arènso Bakker: [00:07:16] And then after a few years, new companies came in and said, hey, this is interesting because there's a barge terminal, there's people available who can work. There's space, all kind of aspects, very important for distribution. And then new companies came in and nobody expected what type of company that would be. But it was in the fashion industry. A lot of companies came to that town to be based next to the the barge terminal to make use of the barge terminal, and these were goods coming from everywhere in the world. Moving to Lelystad to to be stored in the warehouses to add value here. Because especially in fashion, there's not a lot of added value. A lot of return logistics. To clean it, you have to repair it, you can bring it back to the shops again. Bryndis Whitson: [00:08:03] Exactly. Arènso Bakker: [00:08:03] And that's a cluster. And that's what happened there. So we started with potatoes and onions and in the end going out, and in the end the success was fashion coming in. Oh yeah. And that's a good story. And of course, that brings a lot of jobs to the people living in that town. Bryndis Whitson: [00:08:19] Completely. And that's really good. That's exactly what it's all about. So. Arènso Bakker: [00:08:23] Yeah that's what it is all about. So that's, so I think that's the locational aspects of supply chain and thinking about that process. What's the reason to have it and not to use space, not to create jobs or to supply people living in a certain area. And if you go beyond supplying people, then of course it has to be a logical place to be based. That's pretty much what I do down there nowadays. Working on the locational aspects of supply chain. Bryndis Whitson: [00:08:54] Well, that's what this is exactly the entire point of this podcast is to really showcase the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain so that people who are not us, that are actually in kind of already like the field, come to it going, oh, that's how that happens. Oh, that's what that's all about. Arènso Bakker: [00:09:18] Yeah. And the good thing is that I started in logistics. I worked for Nedlloyd, which was a shipping line, and then it fell apart. And then the land side of the shipping line became DHL. We all know, or I used to work for DHL, I was logistics, I was a site manager. And later on I moved more in area development. But if you want to choose the right locations for companies, for businesses, for distribution centers, you have to understand the logistics, the supply chain. Otherwise you can't do it. You cannot say, oh, this is a nice place let's start a distribution center here. You have to look at how it is organized and what are the unique selling points of an area. And how can you sell the area to people who want to buy the land and build their distribution centers or their factories? That's of course, where and very often seaports, airports are interesting areas to be based. And you can create something, you can create a road or a barge terminal, and from there you can start developing such an area. And the interesting thing is that if you, like me, I started in supply chain, but nowadays I'm more involved in area development of logistics areas. That's. And that's, that's a good match actually. Arènso Bakker: [00:12:03] Yeah, I was educated on the Maritime Academy. So something to do with shipment and so on. And that was fascinated, the logistic processes in ports. So not so much in the, in sailing and being away but more the loading and unloading processes. So I was working for a Nedlloyd, which was a shipping line, but they also had a land operation, mainly in ports, but also in areas that a road department and a rail department and so on. So I was working there as a site manager. So I was in the logistic operation, you could say. And I think first of all, I like to do projects to build new things. And if you are a site manager on logistic operation, it's yeah, it's every day the same, not the same but goods coming in and going out, you have to operate that process and no surprises. That's an important aspect of and personally I like new implementing new things. So I changed from site manager into project manager. And the moment I did it Nedlloyd stopped to exist and was bought, parts of it were bought by DHL. It's now today DHL. And so they created a new DHL and it had to be integrated. It was a merge actually, all of these companies and that's of course a great moment to go into project management because. Bryndis Whitson: [00:13:30] Oh totally. Arènso Bakker: [00:13:31] Yeah. So it was a perfect moment to to switch from from operation into project management. And the main challenge was to integrate all these logistic processes. So they had different systems, these different warehouses, different, the equipment for the drivers and the couriers were different. And of course, the customers wanted to have benefits from this bigger company. And then of course, you had to standardize it somehow. So I got involved in that integrating, standardizing actually the logistic processes to make it possible to integrate them into one building. So, that was that was the process I was working on. Very interesting. So we were defining the logistic processes. We were defining the specs for the IT systems. And we did that partly in Malaysia. Um, it was the development center of DHL at the time and partly in Brussels, where the air hub was, and from there on and we worked on everything that had to do with the warehousing. It was a very interesting time, and at the time they were selling, they were selling warehouses, renting new warehouses, back, integrating to bigger warehouses, looking for the perfect location. So that was a very interesting time to work for a company like DHL. Bryndis Whitson: [00:14:52] Totally. You'd get a chance to learn not just about like supply chain logistics, but it gives you a chance to learn about land and how everything kind of integrates with real estate and those kind of pieces too. Arènso Bakker: [00:15:06] Yeah, and also culture, because the model was, I worked for the Global Coordination Center. So we made a blueprint, and from there the regions had to implement the improvements. And we did pilot projects everywhere. And then you learn that every country is organized in a different way. So then you have to adapt to that as well. So you can make a blueprint, but you cannot just drop it top down. You have to somehow, yeah, make it possible to defer a bit from the processes defined on the top. And that was very interesting as well. Bryndis Whitson: [00:15:41] Oh yeah. Arènso Bakker: [00:15:42] Yeah yeah. So unique experience. And then, but then I was traveling a lot. And at that time DHL was coming German and they moved everything from Belgium into and Great Britain into Germany. And that was the moment that a lot of people not being German stepped out. And I did as well. It was very difficult to switch to Germany from Brussels at the time. So then I and I meanwhile had a lot of experience with project management and the spatial aspects of supply chain. So I was asked to become the director for land in the port of Rotterdam. So for eight years and again, this was a very interesting time because that was the time that people said, yeah, the port should have more added value in the port. So we have to create space for distribution centers, we have to do something with the containers coming in. And so we created a new port area with a lot of space for new activities. And being the director for site development is a very interesting time. And at the time the port moved out of the city, so the old port areas became more social areas and new housing projects. And in the beginning, as a logistic guy, I said, what a waste wasting these old port areas for city purposes, because we need space for ships and for trucks and distribution centers. And later on, I learned that it's very important if you have a city in a port that they work together because the city needs the people from, the port needs people from the city. Not only the people, but also the knowledge. We have to involve people. Bryndis Whitson: [00:17:38] Yeah. Arènso Bakker: [00:17:39] And the other way around. The people in the city need jobs in the port. And that has to be a match that's normally there. There's people in the city are not very much aware of the needs of the port. The other way around. And if you have such an old port area on the border between port and city, you can use that to, yeah to start co-creating a port city development. That's what we did, actually. So in the beginning it was a little bit skeptical about it. But in the end, I liked the project very much because we involve the schools. We created a new school area outside the city, near the port that people started. The young people become interested in working in the port and being aware of the presence of the port. Bryndis Whitson: [00:18:27] Which is ideal because the amount, getting people to actually choose to work there is pretty big. Arènso Bakker: [00:18:35] Yeah. And normally they don't see it because the port was moving away from the city towards the sea. And the city didn't see no vessels anymore, no trains anymore. Everything was on a distance. And then it's very important to involve people in the port and that's what we did. It was a very nice project. So I did that for like eight years or something. And then so, and then I started with some partners, a company on port development, integrating all these aspects of city, city needs, port needs, unique selling points of port, being aware of the, the local needs of the supply chain. And then we started doing that in many places, in Colombia and Panama, in South Africa, Emirates. So that's, and of course you have then to translate these lessons learned from Europe into other regions. And that was also the time I was coming to Canada. Bryndis Whitson: [00:19:36] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And then recently, you've been doing more kind of land development stuff like that as well, or? Arènso Bakker: [00:19:47] Now doing, I choose to travel a little bit less than I used to do. So, and now doing a lot of, there's a lot of work in the Netherlands as well. And preferably I work in ports because I like port areas, but I also worked on an economic zone development between Rotterdam and The Hague. And that's 70 hectares, 700,000m² of logistic areas. And then of course I did it on behalf of two cities. And of course they were interested in what are the benefits of this development. Just in land in the costs are quite high. So you have to, you have a lot of farmers and glass houses there originally, but they had to be bought out. That cost a lot of money. And then you have to create the infrastructure and you have to sell the land and the land, the price of the land is there's a certain maximum. So then there's always a small loss in that kind of development, which is fine as long as the development brings a new economy or benefits. In this case it was jobs. So it's about 50 persons per hectare. So if you have an hectare that's 10,000m², at least 50 people should work there. Okay. That's then then you're on the right track. So that's one. And if you you can imagine a lot of activities which are less human resource intensive. But then of course it's a little bit of waste because the reason to spend this money to create this area is to create jobs. And the other thing is can be in the energy change. So using other energy types, using solar panels on the roof, that kind of stuff. So we worked on a nice economic zone development with a green label and creating a lot of jobs across the area. And that's almost done now. So we sold all the land and now we are finalizing and then the project is over, and then there will be a lot of companies using that area for a long term. Bryndis Whitson: [00:21:50] Well, and what a neat thing to as you drive by those areas to say, oh, I had some impact in that kind of section. Arènso Bakker: [00:22:01] Yeah. But the other side is that people say, oh, you were the guy behind the ugly boxes along the that you see, if you drive, if you pass by and that's of course, the other side of it. And people, so I mean the project I didn't start it, I stepped in halfway and when I started it was still everybody said, okay, distribution centers is good, getting jobs and some maybe three years ago, there was some professor from a university who said, yes, that's the creating all these boxes in the horizon is ugly. And why do we do this? And he has a point. I think you can do better. You can make them more beautiful. You can combine functions. You can integrate them with other purposes in the area. So I think there's a lot of debate about it. And this project started before and had to be finalized at the this discussions went on. And then of course, you have to sometimes explain that that 10, 15 years ago wasn't like that. So and today you might do it differently. And now currently they are looking at on distribution centers combined with housing or with accommodation on the roof. You can have a football fields on top of a distribution center so you can, and of course, the other thing is Netherlands is very dense country. So you double use of land is I think the next step. You have to think about that and of course it's more expensive if you use the roof of a building it's more expensive. But you cannot keep take away all the green land, all the cultural land, all forests to build new economical areas. You can't. You have to development and you have to redevelop them and you have to double use the land. Bryndis Whitson: [00:23:55] But that, what a great use of different spacing and stuff like that too because it, here in Canada we've had like a lot of areas where we have shortages for space for, you know, soccer fields, football fields, those kind of things. What a great ability. Arènso Bakker: [00:24:14] To imagine you have enough space you have in Canada. Bryndis Whitson: [00:24:18] Yeah, we've got lots of space, but also, but less in the certain areas where things are being developed. Yeah, they're too far away, but what a great way to utilize different spaces as long as the safety precautions are there. Arènso Bakker: [00:24:35] Yeah, and it's very interesting what's happening currently because a lot of our architects and so on are making plans. How you can, how you double, how you can double use the land and having all kind of functions on top of the buildings because they're huge. So that's that's what's happening. Bryndis Whitson: [00:24:54] Exactly. Even the simple things too, when you look at what a typical warehouse, whether here or in the Netherlands. It looks like it's very much that big box. But if you change a little bit of the architecture, the coloring, so it becomes more of something that isn't an eyesore. It's got color. It's got, or something. What a great way to change people's perspectives too. Arènso Bakker: [00:25:23] But then as a government, you have to dare doing that. Because of course, if you ask the market, the most optimal shape is a box. On one side you have trucks, and above the trucks, the docks, you have the offices. That's that's the, but there's a lot of examples already that you can do it differently. But sometimes you have as a government, for instance, you can say, okay, the rules are different. You have to do something about architecture or about land use and so on. And if you do that in the beginning, parties might say, yeah, but that costs extra money and it's too expensive. But in the end, if there's not no space available anymore, you have to do that. Of course. So keep on, so the easiest way is to add to use more space, more green space because that's cheapest. But if it's not available and in Europe in 2040, the ambition is to have zero net land take so you don't take new green land or agricultural land for that kind of functions anymore. Either you either you demolish an old plant and you make a green area out of it, or you redevelop it, but you cannot just take more green land. And of course, as long as there's green land available, people keep on using green land, which is easier. If you say you're not allowed anymore, that's the Zero Net Land Act, then you have to be creative, and you have to combine functions and to redevelop and make that possible. So it's possible but that's a change. Bryndis Whitson: [00:27:00] Mhm. Definitely. And but so many different kind of aspects to kind of look at too. So when you kind of look at your career and different projects that you've worked on, it sounds like a lot of fun different interesting projects. Is there 1 or 2 that kind of stand out of like, you know, that was a neat moment in time to be a part of. Arènso Bakker: [00:27:24] A neat moment. Yeah, I was allowed to work for about three years on a project for the Panama Canal, which was great because it's another part of the world. And they were changing their minds. And the Panama Canal was, is of course, existing already for from 1914 onwards. And ships are passing by. But then you, and first the Americans later on the state of Panama were earning money by having this canal, which is fine. But then they realized that the canal was too small, and they needed bigger locks to to allow bigger vessels go through the canal. And that's what's called the expansion of the Panama Canal. But in fact, the project was much bigger. It's not only the new locks, it's also a new container terminal and also the development of a logistic area along the canal. And because they said, okay, the ships should not only pass by, but they should also stop and bring some new economy. And actually, I think the question initially was more spatial. This is the area and we should make an economic zone out of it. But I think first of all, it was about positioning. Why would a company, international company go to an area along the Panama Canal? You can also go to Mexico, to Colombia? Bryndis Whitson: [00:28:55] Exactly. Why? Yeah. Arènso Bakker: [00:28:57] And one of the things, if you look at unique selling points, one of the things in Panama is that people earn a little bit more money than the surrounding countries. So it's, for a company producing something or having labor is quite expensive in Panama. You have to compete with other countries in order with companies in other countries. So that's, that was the, so if you have the disadvantage of higher salaries, then you have to compete in a different way. I said, okay, what would be the benefit of a company being based along the Panama Canal? Now that was the big question. And of course, the answer is quite easy. The Panama Canal itself, because the vessel is passing through the canal. And then there should be an advantage of if you're passing by the Panama Canal to have your activities along the canal and then we said you could also look at the Panama Canal as a port with two entrances instead of one. Normally the port has one entrance, but this one has two. From both sides. Bryndis Whitson: [00:29:59] Exactly. It's got the. Yeah. Arènso Bakker: [00:30:00] And that, of course, is the perfect thing because if you have a factory or a hub for cars, you can go to the east coast of America, but you can also go, you can also go to Asia. So you can create a hub along the canal. Bryndis Whitson: [00:30:18] Yeah. Arènso Bakker: [00:30:19] And if you do that, then every region you can, you ship your goods to, you can, they will require special adjustments to the goods. So for instance cars if you have cars for Europe, different cars for America, different from cars for Asia. So you can add value there. That's interesting. Bryndis Whitson: [00:30:38] True. Yeah. Arènso Bakker: [00:30:39] That was the main purpose in Panama. And the other thing is that a lot of countries around Panama, they have special economic zones, meaning that they add value. They don't have to pay tax on this added value. That's a big advantage for these companies, for these international companies. And initially this was not possible there because it required a change in law said okay, but then you have a disadvantage. You already have the disadvantage of higher labor, higher labor costs. You have an advantage of the canal, but you have a disadvantage if there's no tax, no special tax arrangement. So we need that. And otherwise it will become too difficult to sell the land because companies won't don't like to be there because for tax reasons. So that was a very interesting project. And I think we created, yeah, you defined the circumstances to make it an interesting area. And so there was also some need from infrastructure like there was only one bridge to go into that area. Of course if there would be a traffic jam or whatever, you need another route as well. So the bridge was required, that kind of stuff, we also defined. So a master plan but then also from unique selling points of the area. Bryndis Whitson: [00:31:57] Oh yeah. Looking at those different pieces. Arènso Bakker: [00:32:00] Yeah. Can an area function in the right way for international companies as a logistic hub. That's a very interesting project, working together with people from the Panama Canal, being aware of the canal operation. So one of the things was, for instance, the area to develop was on both sides of the locks. So part of it was closed, was on the side of the ocean, the Pacific Ocean. The other side was linked to the canal itself. So that's inside. But inside the canal is fresh water. So you cannot load and unload going vessels because of the ballast water. That would interfere with the fresh water. And the fresh water was used for the city of Panama. So we had to take that into our plan, had to take that into account as well, that we couldn't have a seagoing vessel operations in the canal. So it could also could only happen outside the canal. Bryndis Whitson: [00:32:56] Oh, yeah. Arènso Bakker: [00:32:56] And then the other thing is, the interesting parts is that the canal had two exits to two oceans, which is interesting. But if you are based on one side of the canal and you have to create transfer. You have to transport goods to the other side of the canal as well. There's a railroad and there's a highway. But if you really want to create a hub function, there will be a lot of extra traffic. So we also thought about using the canal for small barges, for barge operation to be able to link both ends of the canal. So if goods coming in on the Pacific side, you could store them, you could add value there, and then you ship them to the Pacific side again, but also to the side. Bryndis Whitson: [00:33:36] Yeah, you could. Yeah. Arènso Bakker: [00:33:39] And that's a concept, a logistic concept for that area which would make the area feasible for development. That was a great project. If you ask what's a great project? That was great. Bryndis Whitson: [00:33:50] I bet because there would be so many different learnings plus able to utilize a lot of your other kind of experiences, ideas, economic development. You know, what a great way to kind of interact with all of that. Arènso Bakker: [00:34:07] Yeah, indeed. So and I think later on a little bit about the same question came from Egypt. Also creating the Canal Zone development. And that was also about logistic concepts along the canal. And yeah, we also made recommendations how to make the area attractive for international companies. But here, for instance in Egypt was the currency issue. International companies want to use dollars or euros, but not local currencies. And that was the difficult aspect there as well. And we made recommendations to have a special zone, a special economic zone with the possibility to use foreign currencies as well instead of local currencies. Otherwise it would not be attractive for companies to be based along the canal. But you see both in Panama and Egypt is the local authorities were aware of the need to create something more than only ships passing by, but that you have to do something with the volumes of coming in and out that you create jobs. That's the whole thing in both those countries. Bryndis Whitson: [00:35:18] Well, especially when you, you know, really look at the economic zones, what a key chain like need that really is when you're dealing with so many currencies around the world. And, you know, there's the ones that people tend to mainly deal in. But what a big piece of having those economic zones are so crucial around the world, too. Arènso Bakker: [00:35:42] Yeah. And I think that that it's a matter of trust. If people if you want international companies go to a certain area to a country that they know. So you need some stability, you need a currency you can trust. You need a legislation that you can trust. That's also an important one. And so you have to be, you cannot just say, oh yes, let's make a plan and just start building. You have to take that into account as well. Otherwise it will never work. You can create land, but you cannot push it. You have to pull the customers to the area. And that's by creating trust, making it attractive, yeah. Bryndis Whitson: [00:36:20] And there's so many different kind of pieces when you're looking at such a big scale of a project like areas like economic zones, you know, the current flow, the future trends, like there's a lot that kind of can potentially go into those kind of projects too. Arènso Bakker: [00:36:39] Yeah. And you have to find a balance between, what, but of course, there is always traffic noise, ugly buildings, whatever. But if there's also something coming back then it's, then it's fine. And that has to do with education, with health, with jobs, with security, that kind of kind of stuff. It's all important. And if you don't balance it, people don't want it anymore. They say, okay, do it somewhere else. But not in my backyard. Bryndis Whitson: [00:37:07] Yeah. Nimby. Yeah. Yeah. Arènso Bakker: [00:37:10] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Bryndis Whitson: [00:37:11] Yeah. All of those different factors that we kind of look at, too and just, you know, the one thing you were saying is how much you really love working with ports and stuff like that. And, I mean, even though I'm in landlocked Calgary, I love ports. And so what are those kind of pieces that make you love looking at port projects, especially? Arènso Bakker: [00:37:39] Yeah. The ports have an extra dimension. So it's not only roads and rail, but it's also water. And intermodality is important. Changing from one modality to the other. And seaports, of course, that's obvious, because vessels coming in and the goods have to be transported to the hinterland by either truck, train or barge. So that's obvious there. But if you look at an inland port, it's already that's, but then you really add something because you there's often a lot of congestions, people, there are too many trucks coming in or going out. And then if you add the functionality of a port, of course, that's typical for the Netherlands because we have a lot of rivers all coming, coming to the Netherlands from all over Europe, so we are lucky there that we can use it. And but I think you cannot do everything by the water. You cannot do everything by the train. So you have to find a combination. Bryndis Whitson: [00:38:36] No. And creating that interconnection between all of those different modes. And so making sure that everything connects but that the land, but you're utilizing the land correctly and also making sure that, you know, everything is still connected completely. Arènso Bakker: [00:38:55] Yeah. You can link that. For instance, you can say okay, land is scarce. So if you want to buy a piece of land, we want to have a plan how you are going to transport your goods. Are you only going to use trucks. Maybe. I don't want to sell the land to you if you want to use other modalities as well, that kind of things, that's typically for boards to discuss. Airports. You see it especially on environmental aspects. So if you want to go to with your plane to my airport, you have to use modern planes or different types of fuel. And then you can do that with ships as well. That makes it very interesting because this the impact is much bigger. So if you change a little bit the effect is much bigger as well. That's maybe what I like on ports. So it's a complex, it's there's a lot of aspects you have to think of and it's very often has it has an international dimension. Bryndis Whitson: [00:39:54] And well, it totally is because your ships are coming in from wherever your trains are going, you know, and kind of multi countries. Same with the trucks. There's a lot of different kind of connections that are happening there. But even in Canada where it's going across provinces, but sometimes it's also going, you know, from Canada to the US etc.. So there's or even now to Mexico. And so all of those kind of areas and also making sure that the flow between those modes works well as opposed to... Yeah. Arènso Bakker: [00:40:33] And but I for instance, I sometimes do audits for the European Committee about investments in infrastructure. And nowadays a lot of goods go from Asia to Western Europe and from Western Europe they go east. But actually if you look at the map, it's not logic. You could also go to Greece or to Italy and then go up. Then you also go to the eastern part of Europe, and you see a lot of economic development in the eastern part of Europe. And the western part of Europe is of course, had the advantage of for many years of being the most developing area of Europe. But now eastern Europe is doing very well. And then it doesn't make sense to go all the way around Europe and then unload in the port of Rotterdam or in Hamburg, and from there go by train back to the eastern part of Europe. You can, you better go up via Turkey, Greece, Italy. And then you see that a lot of port projects are started. But if you don't have the connection to the hinterland, it doesn't work. So it has to be balanced. And they have, yeah, there are a lot of projects now going on that not only look at the port project itself, but also about transport to the hinterland. And that should be, that should not be road, it should be rail and this may be difficult in most parts of Europe, but at least they should have a lot of rail connections. And you see that now going side to side, you see port development, you see rail projects both from the north, from the Baltics and from the south, from the Mediterranean area. And that's very interesting because if you put your money only on one aspect, then it doesn't work. Only railroads don't work if you don't have port capacity. So it should be a balanced plan. I think that's the good thing that your committee is, the European Committee is doing, looking at the bigger picture instead of only a port aspect or a rail aspect. Bryndis Whitson: [00:42:31] Mhm. Well, and adding those kind of pieces because you know, there's always, no matter what industry we're in, at what point what country we're in, there's always those questions of that first mile and last mile. So you know making sure that the goods are getting at the port, but they're also getting that piece at that final destination, too. So that kind of making sure that things are working kind of hand in hand is a really big thing. Arènso Bakker: [00:43:04] Yeah. And the most difficult part is to change. People don't like to change. They just do it the same way already for many years. So if you say let's take another route or another modality, not possible because what can happen? It can be very expensive, things can go wrong. We don't know where our goods are. So if you really want to make a change and want to optimize routes, smarter routes, other modalities, then you have to deal with that. People don't like change, so you have to change cultures first. And I see a lot of projects also on European level. The subsidies go there and on integral planning, optimizing planning using different routes depending on the supply and demand. And that's very interesting. And I think technically it can be done. You can especially with blockchain, you can you really can optimize these routes. But if people don't want to do it because they are used to certain players in the market to do certain companies to cooperate with the companies, then there's no change. But you see it changing slowly. Bryndis Whitson: [00:44:14] Oh, completely. Well, and there's so many different ways that everything kind of works together, especially as people slowly adapt to those changes, but also as they kind of move in other aspects too. Arènso Bakker: [00:44:30] So, yeah, so in the end, there's people business. And that's what I like very much. You can look at length aspect, you can look at the social aspect of the cities, but also the people working in these logistics. Of course they really also yeah, they have to adapt to changes as well. That's a very interesting to be on top of that. Bryndis Whitson: [00:44:51] Well, and that's you know, even the people aspect too, if we don't have the right people, if we don't have enough people, you know, as much as technology does advance, you know, and things do become more automated or something like that. I think the port of Rotterdam has. But you still need people and there's various different ways that you need them, and you need to have them still be able to kind of interact with the port. As much as we bring in technology, we still need the people to do the things too. Arènso Bakker: So, indeed so and I think also things can be changed in responsibilities if you have to hand over goods to another party and then something goes wrong, who is responsible, who's going to pay the damage? That's a very big aspect of blocking change, actually. People. Of course, if everything goes well, everybody's happy. But if it goes wrong, who can be blamed? And who's going to pay the bill? Yeah. That's not, that's still a big issue in in logistics. Bryndis Whitson: Well and that's you know, the point that I always try to instill in my clients at, in our supply chain classes where it was like always make sure that you know where the insurance is and which, you know, at what point does it switch. And so that in case something happens along the way or the container, you know, accidentally slips off or whatever, who's the person in charge of that? Yeah. Arènso Bakker: Yeah. And yeah, I think it's very complex. And that makes that people prefer to leave everything as it is. But that's, but we have to change. We have to optimize. We have to reduce miles. We have to use other types of modalities. And you cannot just stick to the way we do it already for 20 years. But that's actually going on now. And of course there are thousands of reasons why you cannot change. But in the end you have to find a way. And but I like very much it's the small and medium enterprises working all these issues. They have small solutions for an aspect. And if you, if you look at these proposals for subsidies and so on, you look what kind of changes will come from it. Is there, is it a huge impact? Is it disrupting the market? And sometimes you see great ideas about looking at the supply chain in a different way. It's often often it's software related, but sometimes it's also packaging can be an issue. If you have small volumes, you don't have a big rail terminal. Then you need equipment that can shift the container from a truck to a train without having a crane. That kind of solutions is very nice to see what's happening there. Bryndis Whitson: Yeah. And as our kind of ways that we deliver change too, like we're doing a lot more home to home delivery, or home deliveries, we're doing a lot less deliveries to the store, but we're still doing deliveries to the store. But we're also delivering to the home and each one of those too impact the way that we develop too. Arènso Bakker: Yeah. Now there are two interesting aspects on it. First of all, people, a lot of people don't like to, of course, they like to receive the goods at home, but they're not home during the whole day. So that's difficult. And so sometimes people prefer to like to pick it up. And if you if you have pickup locations then you can also combine that with services, like for instance, if you order a new trousers and they're a little bit too long, you can have a tailor in-house where you pick up your parcel. That can be an interesting development, which I expect to become interesting. It will be an interesting development if you can can develop a pickup centers with services, that can be an interesting one. And the other thing is combining the last mile. A lot of trucks driving going into the cities. But of course you don't want to have all these trucks. So if you can combine it some way that would be great. But it has to do with responsibility, especially these integrators like DHL, I used to work for them. They don't like to hand over the parcel to somebody else. They want to do it themselves. And that's of course a quality aspect, but that's blocking. So if everybody, if UPS and Fedex is doing it as well and they all have their own trucks driving into the cities to deliver, which is a pity. But the first thing in the Netherlands is that they now see a lot of electric bikes, with people on it delivering the parcels to the house. That's of course, a good development. Bryndis Whitson: Yeah, actually, it's interesting that you say that I was at something the other, a few months ago, and I was talking about how, you know, showing e-bikes and delivery cargo bikes and how do we integrate that in different areas. And because I find that every time I go to Toronto and I'm seeing this, I'm like, oh, look at that. I'm quickly taking a picture or something or in Vancouver or something like that, because it's good to see that kind of different delivery models, especially if you're in very dense population areas too. Arènso Bakker: Yeah. And so that's another completely another part of the supply chain. But especially in this innovation area with small and medium enterprises, a lot of new tools are developed to optimize that process as well. The reason I do these audits, not, I just like to see what's happening in the supply chain world. And sometimes I'm surprised what people will invent, what kind of innovations there are. Bryndis Whitson: Well, there are so many different technologies too with the kind of coming in and the different possibilities that way. So how you can interact and add those pieces too, I think is yeah. Arènso Bakker: Making the impact on the society, the impact on traffic, on the environment. That's what you want to achieve. Bryndis Whitson: Yeah. Well, even, you know, in a city where there's some density, but there's also a little like suburban areas, even looking at the different types of vehicles. And so, you know, recently I was getting a lot of packages from UPS, and not one of them was actually delivered in a UPS vehicle. It was delivered in a van and it was always the same type of van, but it was smaller because it had to get into smaller areas than the typical UPS size of a vehicle that we think of. So, you know, we look at also, you know, the number of Amazon trucks, the number of all of those other products that we have delivering, you know, within our sectors too. Arènso Bakker: Yeah. And that's what I like in supply chain. And there are also, there's always some topic which is related to it, the pricing changes as well. So it's never boring. Bryndis Whitson: No. Exactly. There's always something new. So, yeah. And kind of, if you were kind of talking to someone that was kind of entering the field or thinking about entering the field, what kind of tips or advice would you give that person? Arènso Bakker: It's always good to start an operation to really understand what's happening and, but be aware that there's a lot of other topics related. You can step over easily. You can go from operation to finance. You can go from operations to projects. You can go from projects to spatial aspects and locations. So, and of course, it depends on the person. And some people like to keep things as they are. But then still you have to deal with changes because your work will change and might, there might be a lot of new tools and software and automation. And it's also nice if you like to learn other topics as well. You can always make one small step outside your current job to learn new things. And that's what's interesting in logistics. It's always good to, what I personally like is to combine 2 or 3 things. So, for instance, in my case know about the supply chain but also know about areas. And then you combine it and then you can really make a difference if you do that. Bryndis Whitson: And that's what I really love is that you can take so many different aspects, or switch from different industries, but you don't, you take your knowledge with you and it improves the other industries as well too. Arènso Bakker: And it's good for yourself, but it's also good for the supply chain in general. Because if you step from one field into another field, you have luggage that you bring with you. And of course, that's if everybody stays in their own little area, then nobody understands each other. But if you switch once in a while, people learn from each other, and that's an important aspect as well. Bryndis Whitson: You know, completely. And there's so many different kind of fields that you can get into in different areas. And I, and also that, you know, kind of discussion about economic development and how, but also how land also, you know, impacts that, how all of those different modes, you know, all intersect too. Arènso Bakker: Yeah. And then sometimes if you work on the close to governments, it's also interesting to understand how that works because our decisions made what's important for them. And when does it, when is it the success and when not and how to deal with the uncertainty of that process? Bryndis Whitson: Well, even when you talk about that, you know, looking at, you know, in, you know, the Netherlands, for example, you're going through like multiple countries, potentially, like that one rail or car or, you know, truck or something like that. So there's multiple making sure that all of those governments are working together so that there isn't anything that could be creating a barrier. You know, even in Canada, we've got areas where when you go from one province to another, there's, you know, previously at some points there was like different requirements because there's something, a lot of trucking is provincial. And so as a result, you know, at one point there was different requirements as to what was required inside of a, you know, first aid kit. And so they had to work together as provinces to ensure that they actually had the same standard. Arènso Bakker: Yeah. Otherwise you had to hand over the goods because you're not allowed to continue your journey. Yeah. Not long ago there were different sizes of tracks. Of rails. Bryndis Whitson: Yeah. Arènso Bakker: Yeah. And of course, it was also something that had to be solved. Bryndis Whitson: Totally. That would add that extra piece too. Yeah. Arènso Bakker: So I think cultures international, other cultures within countries in fields of work, yeah, that's interesting as well. Dealing with that. Yeah. Bryndis Whitson: Yeah. And what I love too is that, you know, they're very different areas around the world. But what you're showcasing is how as much as our cultures or things might be different, they're still learnings that we can create across the entire world. And we can take the best and learn from each other so that perhaps we make an even better supply chain as opposed to repeating the same things over and over. Arènso Bakker: Yeah. Yeah, indeed. So you have to find where you, where things are similar and not what are the differences, but where can you help each other? Bryndis Whitson: Thank you for listening to this Zebras to Apples podcast episode. I hope you enjoyed the showcase of the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. If you like this episode, I would love it if you could give it a rating and review. For more information about this topic, you can go to ZebrasToApples.com or follow Zebras to Apples on the social media platform of your choosing, whether that's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, BlueSky or LinkedIn. You can support the show on Patreon. Also, check out the show notes below. Please join me again for another episode of Zebras to Apples. Have a wonderful day!