Most supply chain problems are not technology problems.

Independent supply chain consulting. Network design, operating model, transport, 3PL performance, systems and AI.

Supply chain networks, operating models and the systems that run them: that is what I do, my name is Tom Eden. Most of it is for a business that has outgrown the shape it was built in and can no longer tell where the problem actually sits. The work starts inside the operation, and the technology question follows inside the same review, because until you know how the work actually runs you are only guessing at what should run it. That sequencing carries most of the value.

Put the system in first and you will automate a process nobody has questioned, then spend the next two years explaining to a board why the numbers did not move. That outcome is ordinary. I have been the business-side lead on enough implementations to have seen how early the warning signs turn up, and how reliably they get overruled by a go-live date.

How I work

What you are actually buying.

Ahead of all of it sits a question that tends to get skipped: whether the operating strategy still lines up with the business strategy. Where those two have drifted apart, the argument about systems against manual process stops mattering, because both of them will be working efficiently towards something the business has stopped wanting. I would rather find that on day three than write a recommendation that is internally coherent and pointed in the wrong direction.

I look at how the work runs before I look at what runs it. That means the flow, the constraints, the handovers, and the decisions people make when the written process does not cover the situation in front of them, which is where most of the real operating model lives and where almost none of it is documented. A system specified without that is a specification of the current mess, rendered in software and considerably harder to change afterwards.

On an automation programme I was asked where automation would return value, and a good half of what I handed back was where it would not, because the manual process was already cheap and flexible and was about to be made worse by a machine with no answer for exceptions. Saying that costs a consultant revenue. It is also the reason the rest of the recommendation is worth reading.

I work with a small network of specialist associates and technology partners, sized to the engagement. You deal with me throughout, and I bring a specialist in when the scope genuinely needs one, not to make the team look bigger than the job it was hired for.

What I do

Six areas, and a boundary on the last one.

Network design: Where stock sits and where it ships from. The question underneath is usually harder than it first looks: how many sites the network should carry, which states each one covers, and whether the facility already on the books earns its place against outsourcing the same volume to somebody who does this for a living.
Operating model: Once the network settles, the function has to be shaped around it. Who owns what, where decisions sit, how the team is built, and the service design behind whatever delivery promise you have made to customers, which is the part that quietly determines whether the network you designed can actually be run.
Transport: Carrier mix, cost to serve, national re-tender and the commercial negotiation behind it. Route and network optimisation too, where the volume justifies the analysis and not before, because optimisation work has a floor below which it costs more than it returns.
3PL performance: I have run the 3PL side with P&L accountability and I have sat on the customer side managing the spend, so I read both sets of incentives without needing them explained. That covers scope, commercial terms and onboarding, and then the harder question of whether an arrangement written for the business you were five years ago still fits the one you have now.
Systems: Requirements and selection, then business-side lead through design, build and cutover. WMS, TMS, ERP, reporting and CRM. My job in that room is to hold the operation's position while the vendor holds theirs, and to make sure the thing that goes live is the thing the operation asked for and not simply the thing that configured most easily.
AI: Where AI will help your operation and where it will not, assessed by looking at your work instead of at the category. I specify and I advise, and a fair part of that advice is which steps of your process should be left exactly as they are. I do not build production AI systems. A consultant who tells you otherwise is describing an engineering team he does not have.

Independent work

Engagements since July 2024.

National distribution footprint, medical consumables importer and wholesaler A local operation moving to a national one against a tenfold growth target over five years. Where to put the sites was the smallest part of it. I worked through which states should hold stock and which should distribute it, whether to build into the facility they already ran or place the volume with a third party, how inventory should sit across the network once it did, and how transport should be managed against all of that. The arrangements between those pieces are what decide whether a network can actually be run, and they are the part a site map does not show you. Underneath sat one trade-off, restated at every decision: how much responsiveness the business needed to hold onto, what it was giving up in efficiency to hold it, and what the total cost came to on either side of that line.
Technology stack and solution design, agricultural producer Reviewed the operational flow and the business structure, then designed the technology stack to support them. The sequence carries the value. A product shortlist drawn up before that review is a shortlist for somebody else's business.
Automation programme support Assessed where automation returned value across the operation, and, at more length, where it did not and the manual process should stay.
Network routing and optimisation analysis, global e-commerce operator Designed a hub and spoke network built around delivery density, on the simple logic that cost per unit falls when drops sit close enough together to fill a vehicle and keep it moving. The rest was working out which catchments carried the volume to anchor a spoke and which did not, since those are the ones that decide whether the model holds. Client de-identified.
Profitability, process and go-to-market review, national 4PL A 2024 consulting engagement that turned into a full-time role. The detail is in the background below.

Background

The floor first, then the P&L.

I started on the warehouse floor in 2005, as a storeperson at Best & Less in Southland. Everything below is employment history, done for the employers named rather than by this practice, and it sits on the page because the arc is the argument: the operations-first position I sell now was learned on the receiving end of other people's implementations, from the shift floor upward, long before it was something to put on a website.

Forklift Operator, then Warehouse Manager, Storpak 3PL Nov 2006 to Nov 2009

Six months on the forklift, then the manager's job from May 2007. Two sites, 20,000 square metres between them, more than 40,000 SKUs and over 200 staff, for clients including Coca-Cola, Shell and Bayer. I ran an operational restructure and a layout redesign across both.

Warehouse Manager, Ultrapak Nov 2009 to Jan 2011

A 4,000 square metre 3PL and packaging site with up to 30 staff, which I ran through a supplier liquidation while implementing HACCP and obtaining the bonded warehouse licence, none of which had been on the plan when I took the job.

National Supply Chain Support, CH2 (Clifford Hallam Healthcare) Jan 2011 to Feb 2015

National healthcare distribution into aged care, veterinary, hospital and retail pharmacy. I was national lead for the Supply Chain Business Transformation programme and I owned the WMS, TMS and a proprietary application built in-house, designing the workflow logic alongside the developers, which is where I learned that the people who write the requirements and the people who run the shift are rarely the same people and never in the same room. I moved the Roselands site to Eastern Creek: 4,000 pallets, 12,000 SKUs valued at $50M, six semi-trailer shuttles, 100 staff across four facilities, three days. A national freight re-tender returned over $1M annualised. Consolidating a state-based materials handling fleet into a single national contract of 68 machines, most of them converted to electric, took total procurement savings past $2M.

Global Supply Chain Analyst, Daniels Health Feb 2015 to Aug 2016

Healthcare waste management and consumables, operating across the United States and Australia. I coordinated international product movements from the US into Australia for new product launches, led a WMS implementation, supported the upgrade of a heavily customised Navision ERP, and ran a national facility and network review covering capacity, coverage and cost to serve.

Operational Specialist, Central Healthcare Services (Sigma Healthcare Group) Aug 2016 to Nov 2018

I was part of the senior bid team that won the Commonwealth prime vendor contract for sole supply of pharmaceutical, medical and dental consumables to the Australian Army, Navy and Air Force, and then the lead operational and process specialist for the Central Healthcare Services side of the implementation, which is a different job entirely and the one that decides whether the bid was honest. Alongside that implementation I took operational lead on the build and commissioning of a new facility at Perth Airport, and led the operational launch of the hospital division in Western Australia. I also won and onboarded a major medical device customer, from commercial analysis and solution design through to a temporary facility setup and two site relocations.

National Operations Key Accounts Manager, Sigma Healthcare Group Nov 2018 to Jul 2024

A remit across both group entities, Central Healthcare Services and Sigma Healthcare Logistics, covering government contracts outside retail and community pharmacy plus all 3PL accounts. I was promoted onto the Central Healthcare Services senior management team, one of six reporting to the General Manager with the Sigma CFO as executive sponsor, and I held the 3PL and Defence prime vendor portfolio: around 70 per cent of business throughput, more than $100M in distributed product value across 15,000 SKUs, 20,000 pallets and four facilities.

The Defence work sat under me as business lead: ADF onboarding, and the redesign of how Defence ordered and held inventory, which replaced periodic bulk ordering with a demand-driven replenishment model. Defence's Health Systems Program Office described that as leading reform. I designed a vessel-based ordering and delivery solution across 26 ports, supplying at days' notice, and I led supply operations for the Departments of Defence, Industry and Health through COVID-19 and the 2019-20 bushfire response.

I built the key accounts function from nothing, which meant the team, the process and the reporting, and I later took the customer-facing team as well. I ran transport and OpEx tenders, led strategic sourcing for the Defence programme, and carried accountability for CSOA, GWP, GDP and ISO 13485 compliance. On systems, I onboarded Defence onto Sigma's SAP platform, sat on the SAP design and rollout team through the Sigma integration, implemented Business Objects for national reporting and led the Salesforce rollout into Central Healthcare Services.

Head of Solutions, FLSA (Freight & Logistics Services Australia) Jan 2025 to Jun 2026

A national 4PL: freight management, 3PL, specialised transport and supply chain consulting. I designed supply chain solutions for prospects and customers, mapping network configuration, integration requirements and system fit, and I rebuilt the commercial modelling process so the business could price a wider range of freight opportunities without slowing down. I led carrier capability assessment and pricing negotiation behind each solution. I advised customers on freight network optimisation, carrier mix, cost to serve, warehouse layout and slotting. FLSA began in July 2024 as a consulting engagement reviewing profitability, process and go-to-market, and became a full-time role in January 2025.

Independent practice Jul 2024 to present

Consulting in my own right since July 2024, actively from July 2024 to January 2025 and again from June 2026. The engagements are listed above.

Engagement

How this works in practice.

Structure, location and availability: I engage through my own company, which means no notice period and a contracting arrangement your procurement team has seen a hundred times before. Consulting engagements, contract, interim and permanent are all open. I would rather have the rate and structure conversation at the start than find out at offer stage that both sides had a different number in mind. Based at Langwarrin South on the Mornington Peninsula and working nationally. Australian citizen, security clearance eligible.
Qualifications: Bachelor of Business Administration in Logistics, Materials and Supply Chain Management, RMIT University, 2018. Diploma of Supply Chain and Logistics and Diploma of Management, Chisholm. Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt. Azure AI Fundamentals, AWS AI Practitioner and Google Cloud Generative AI Leader are in progress through 2026, and they get listed as complete when they are complete and not before.