In 2008, Amsterdam will again be the backdrop for the European Cold Chain Education Program. After the success of the 2007 edition, with nearly 130 registrations, the Executive Committee of the European IARW/WFLO Council has decided that the European refrigerated warehousing industry will meet on February 25-26 2008 in the Dutch capital again.

The theme of the conference program is: “Back to Basics: safe, efficient and profitable cold storage and distribution”. Insiders in the industry know that nowadays, for all kinds of reasons, warehouse and distribution staff too often lacks the basic skills to bring a logistic process to completion without errors. This is not just causing problems with the customers but has a dramatic effect on the productivity and efficiency of the operation. In the coming years, IARW/WFLO Europe will focus on several of these basic skills during training and education programs, starting in Amsterdam.

The Executive Committee has also decided that the set-up of the Monday afternoon event should be changed from a one-track program to a two-track program, reveals the organization’s press release. The first track will focus, like before, on strategic issues at an executive level. The second track will focus on operational issues and is targeted at middle management. The European IARW/WFLO leadership feels the need to establish a working group or committee to address these operational issues more intensively and intends the foundation of a European Cold Chain Operation & Technology Committee in February 2008 in Amsterdam.