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Mr Robert Yap
The Year 2003 Friend of IT, Mr Robert Yap was determined to pursue his “Love” for IT, with his “Life” – his family business. His vision and innate passion to marry the two drove him to aggressively invest and implement IT into the family’s logistics business. It seemed to him like a natural step to integrate the physical and the information flow, which would create boundless synergies and virtually limitless innovation possibilities. Robert saw this vision as “Building the Logistics Superhighway in a Borderless World”. His efforts at YCH have won him the tag of being Singapore’s Supply Chain Guru.
The task at hand was more daunting than it seemed, requiring him to evangelise internally within the company, of the benefit in exploiting IT in the business, especially to the more senior staff and management who were most resistant to such risky and radical changes. Robert knew that he had to transform the culture of the organisation to not only embrace IT but also to be able to “dream” and exploit the many new opportunities which IT will empower. Logistics was to him not an archaic or primitive industry, but one with huge potential to create a totally new paradigm.
Robert developed his own proprietary Warehouse Management System (WMS), the Freight Management System (FMS) and Traffic Management System (TrMS), pulling them together to create an Integrated Logistics Management Solution (ILMS). He offered this to Fortune 500 MNC Customers, who had a strong demand for such an integrated and seamless service. Despite the earlier sceptics, Robert’s pioneering forays into this realm had yielded a compelling competitive advantage for the company, inculcating a strong belief and culture within the company that “IT is our way of life” in YCH.
His company became the first Logistics Company in Singapore to be awarded the coveted National IT Award by the then National Computer Board in 1992, for Business Excellence through Information Technology.
Robert saw that the age of EDI and the Internet were creating huge opportunities to bridge the many parties within a supply chain community, such as suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, consumers and even the 3PLs. It was because of this vision that Robert was able to launch the company to the next level, to become a premier SCM Solutions Company. The company was able to conceptualise and develop what is arguably the first ever Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI)/Supplier Owned Inventory (SOI) Manufacturing SCM Solution - IntributionTM.
This Web-based SCM solution was awarded the prestigious EDB Innovation Development Award in 1996, the first of an unprecedented half a dozen Innovation Development Awards to date bestowed to the company since, for its suite of end-to-end SCM solutions. It is this relentless pace of innovation that has enabled the company to be a leading Logistics and SCM Solutions provider to World-Class MNCs such as Dell, Motorola, LVMH, Danone, Roche, Ciba, and many others.
Robert’s determination and belief in synthesising the two disciplines of Logistics and IT culminated in spinning off Y3 Technologies (Pte) Ltd – a leading e2e SCM IT Solutions Company. This has resulted in continuous cutting-edge R&D, pushing the frontiers of new IT applications in the field of SCM, and creating new Intellectual Property via various SCM applications and concepts such as mobile supplychain solutions like ePOD® and financial supplychain solutions like ZIM®.
The spirit, energy and determination that Robert exudes, inspires many to see IT in Logistics not only in a different light, but also reminds us all of the excitement, passion and fun that one can have in integrating interest and career.
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