The next time the Australian Defence Force (ADF) deploys troops anywhere in the world, they could be accompanied by employees of the Toll Group to take care of all their logistics needs.
Under the new 10-year $1.5 billion Defence Theatre Logistics contract signed with Toll Group in August, Toll will stand up a 60-member Deployable Support Service Team available to accompany the ADF on operations.
Jenine McCoach, Senior Vice President for Growth Solutions at Toll, who led the defence tender team, said the objective was to free up uniformed personnel by placing contractors in behind the troops to perform support activities.
“It is a whole new requirement. We can put up these people to assist in theatre to do things like logistics support,” she told ADM.
“You are not having to rely on defence members to do some of this lower-level work.”
Toll’s deployed personnel won’t be wearing defence uniforms, but they will need to sign onto the Defence Force Discipline Act. As many members of Toll’s workforce are veterans, this won’t be anything new for them.
McCoach said Toll was well on the way to implementing the new support arrangements at 51 defence facilities across Australia.
This contract replaces two previous defence contracts for retail services and warehousing, with Linfox and Ventia.
“Last week we went live with South Australian and Western Australian for stores,” she said.
“We are now aiming for November to go live in North and South Queensland. December is the biggest which is NSW and Victoria.
“In total there are 51 sites in a combination of stores and warehouses. Also, next year, we will start to run a full distribution network across the country.”
This applies to the full range of defence stores, excluding munitions and fuel. However, Toll stores personnel on defence bases will still have a role in issuing ammunition for training.
Toll Group’s history dates back to 1888 when Albert Toll launched a business in Newcastle transporting coal by horse and cart. In 2015, all Toll’s shares were acquired by Japan Post. The company now operates a global logistics and freight forwarding network.
Ms McCoach said what Defence sought through the DTL contract was Toll’s core business.
Toll said Defence wanted a large, international provider to reduce supply chain risk, deliver routine services with capabilities to rapidly scale up for crisis response.
“Defence demanded a logistics partner with serious muscle - one ready to surge for extraordinary operations,” the company said.
Mc McCoach said in preparing their tender response, Toll performed a complete bottom-up analysis of the costing of the logistics requirements for all 51 defence sites.
“That was one of the biggest things. Also this is Toll’s core business,” she said.
“We already have experience in delivering logistics in really tough locations. It is what we do already.”