As part of its ongoing collaboration with Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, NITL today hosted a visit by Professor Alan McKinnon.

Alan is Director of the Logistics Research Centre in the School of Management and Languages at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. He holds a first class honours degree in geography from Aberdeen University, a Masters in transportation from the University of British Columbia and a PhD from University College London for research on the spatial organisation of physical distribution in the UK food industry. Alan has been researching and teaching in the field of freight transport for almost thirty years and has published widely on the subject. He is the author of Physical Distribution Systems and main editor of Transport Logistics. He was for six years the European editor of the International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management. Alan is a chartered fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) and a founder member of its Logistics Research Network set up to promote research on logistics and freight transport in UK universities and colleges. Since 2003, he has been chairman of the CILT's Professional Development Policy Committee. He received the 2002 Herbert Crow Memorial Award from the Worshipful Company of Carmen of London for ‘significantly furthering transport knowledge and development’ and the 2003 Sir Robert Lawrence Award, the premier award of the CILT, for making a ‘major contribution to transport and logistics over a sustained period’.

Edward Sweeney of NITL is working with Alan on a number of projects one of which involves joint supervision of Doctoral research on the subject of dissemination of information and communications technology (ICT) in small companies in the 3PL sector.