The new Award for Team of the Year requires a little explanation. The judges were not primarily looking for evidence of group hugs around the water cooler, valuable though such techniques may be.

The Supply Chain Excellence Award for Innovation is itself an innovation this year. The judges had in mind both true innovation – processes, methods or technologies that have never been seen before – but also innovation in the sense of introducing a techn

Whatever the commitment to ‘total supply chain’, there is no doubt that logistics and fulfilment remain the core supply chain competences, and the area where the metrics will make or break an Awards entry.

From the shortlist three organisations were recommended by the assessors for consideration in the Sourcing and e-Procurement category: Lafarge Nida, Rexam, and NHS Logistics Authority, while the judges also opted to consider Ducati – interestingly, three

This category produced probably the most closely fought contest among the sector categories and included – Ducati Motor Holdings of Bolgna, Italy, Lafarge Nida Gips (partly French-owned but located in Poland), Philips Lighting in Eindhoeven, the Netherlan

In recent years the Hi-tech sector has tended to set the standard. This season saw five very different finalists on the shortlist – Chloride Power (jointly with CPG Logistics), Dell, Rockwell Automation, Swisscom Mobile and Computacenter (both the latter

Borealis and Henkel both presented traditional, practical organisations. Borealis, based in Mechelen, Belgium, is a manufacturer and distributor of polyolefins (the monomer being manufactured by another business unit) and a market leader.

Four finalists made it through in this category (a fifth, sadly, having to withdraw for internal reasons). As occurred surprisingly often this year, the entrants divided neatly into two groups, with Dentsply International and IDIS both serving specialised

This sector typically attracts a widely disparate set of entries, and 2004 was no exception. They ranged from airline catering to hospital supplies, and from a privatised utility to a service company for the electronics industry.

The judging for ‘overall winner’ is not quite as straightforward as might appear. Although by definition the ‘number one’ will be one of the sectoral category winners, the judges like to nominate a Second and Third, and because of the differences in perfo