Tony Hughes is a logistics consultant and senior supply chain professional with over three decades of experience in warehouse solution design, spanning industrial engineering, automation and simulation. He specialises in the design of automation options including AutoStore and other Goods to Person systems, collaborative picking, conveyors and sortation, and shuttle systems, alongside warehouse and operations design, labour planning, modelling and forecasting, and the specification and implementation of Warehouse Management Systems.

Tony’s foundations were built over nine years at Peugeot Motor Company, where he progressed from Just-In-Time Specialist and Industrial Engineer through to Warehouse Planning Engineer and Distribution Supervisor, before moving into consultancy. He joined Ryder Integrated Logistics in 1998 as a logistics analyst, promoted to Project Manager the following year, before joining Tompkins Associates Consulting in 2000, where he was promoted to Project Manager in 2002 delivering project-based assignments across the UK, Europe and the USA. He then re-joined Ryder from 2002 to 2004, implementing Manhattan WMS, serving as Area Operations Manager for the “Sainsbury’s to You” home delivery operation, and designing the sequencing centre at GM Ellesmere Port.

Building on this foundation, Tony was appointed Solutions Design Manager at DHL Exel Logistics from 2004 to 2008, responsible for the full solutions design lifecycle for new and existing clients — from data analysis and solution design through to cost modelling, tender response and contract negotiation. He went on to lead the transition of Virgin Media’s operations into a new 250,000 sq ft National Distribution Centre as Interim Solutions Manager at Kuehne and Nagel, before a period as Business Development Manager at Norbert Dentressangle (now XPO) and Warehouse Design Manager at CEVA, and an interim Project Manager role at TNT Fashion designing and implementing revised warehouse working practices.

From 2013, Tony combined independent consultancy — including a strategic warehouse design review for BIS Henderson that supported a client’s negotiation for a site of over one million square feet, a European supply chain review, and a lean operations review for Land Rover — with senior solutions design roles at Logistex and Cirrus Logistics (Körber), where he led simulation analysis using CLASS software, delivered CLASS and Cost2Serv training courses, and developed warehouse and site layouts for clients across a range of industries. Since 2020 he has continued as a self-employed logistics consultant, undertaking strategy review and warehouse operations design projects — including AutoStore, AMR and ACR concepts — for independent clients and other consulting firms, alongside two fixed-term interim appointments: as Solutions Manager at Wincanton ahead of its acquisition by GXO, focused on new business development and GTP and collaborative AMR concepts; and, most recently, as Solutions Manager at Constellation Cold leading large-scale high-bay shuttle and conveyor design, and preparing business case documents for board investment approval. Since 2021 he has also been a part-time Visiting Lecturer on the MSc in Supply Chain & Logistics Management at the University of Warwick’s WMG.

Tony holds an MSc in Industrial Logistics (Supply Chain Management) from the University of Central England, together with diplomas from the Institute of Logistics, the Institute of Management Services and the Institute of Production Control. He is a Chartered member of the Institute of Logistics and a member of the UK Warehousing Association.