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Crowe Services Materials Handling · Est. Sydney
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About

Thirty years designing systems that actually run.

Crowe Services is Jason Crowe — a Sydney-based independent consultant specialising in warehouse, distribution, and airport logistics systems. Greenfield and brownfield. Australia-wide. No vendor commissions.

Started as an apprentice draftsman at Colby Handling Systems in 1989. Three decades later, most of what I work on — racking, flow, dock layouts, materials handling — is still built on the same engineering fundamentals, just with better tools and a lot more pattern recognition.

In between, there were stints with Siemens (USA and Australia, designing baggage handling concepts for 429 US airports post-9/11), Mannesmann, Beumer Group, SSI-Schaefer, and LCE Design — where I wrote Sydney Airport's 20-year baggage handling master plan. Ten years of that work was in airport logistics, master-planning systems for Western Sydney Airport, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane, and others. Most recently, twelve months embedded with Woolworths Group Supply Chain as a consultant designing distribution centres across their Australian DC network.

In 2022 I went independent and launched Crowe Services. The brief is simple: offer warehouse and distribution operators an honest technical read on their system without the vendor baggage. I don't sell racking, I don't take commissions on materials handling equipment, and I don't pad a scope with unnecessary phases.

If you need someone to walk your site, read your WMS data, and tell you whether the next investment should be in people, layout, or a bigger building — that's what I do.

Expertise

Three intersecting disciplines — one consultant.

01

Mechanical Systems Design

Thirty years of materials handling equipment design — conveyors, sortation, carousels, racking. Started with Diploma in Mechanical Engineering and kept building from there.

02

Distribution & Warehouse Systems

Greenfield DC design, brownfield retrofits, slotting and flow optimisation, FM Global fire compliance, dock and yard layout. Seven DC sites across Australia in recent scope.

03

Airport & Freight Logistics

Seventeen-plus years on baggage handling, cargo, and landside freight — from tendering a $60M Sydney Airport screening system to BIM management of Brisbane's dual-terminal baggage replacement.

Career

Selected history, in chronological order.

Thirty-six years from apprentice to independent. Condensed — the full CV is available on request.

2022 — Present

Principal Consultant, Crowe Services

Independent consultancy for materials handling, warehouse and logistics systems. Twelve months embedded with Woolworths Group Supply Chain designing DCs across their Australian network. Broader client base covering 3PLs, retailers, and brownfield retrofits. Built a live design-standards knowledge base and a free operator diagnostic (DockIQ) off the back of the work.

2020 — 2022

BIM Manager · Brisbane Airport BHS · Design Engineer, Primary Connect

BIM management across Brisbane Airport's complete baggage handling replacement, both international and domestic terminals. Design engineering for Woolworths' Primary Connect distribution centre operations.

2015 — 2020

Senior Consultant · AvLogix · SSI-Schaefer · Ashcote Consulting

Strategic materials handling and logistics consulting. Designed baggage handling systems for Western Sydney Airport and master planning for Sunshine Coast. Managed MHE projects across Australia & New Zealand at SSI-Schaefer. Global reach at Ashcote included concept design for a proposed freight hub in China.

2010 — 2015

BHS Planning Manager, Sydney Airport · Technical Sales, Beumer Group

Developed comprehensive expansion plans for Sydney Airport's international and domestic baggage handling. Designed sortation systems across airports, express freight, retail, and postal at Beumer Group Australia. Airport BHS implementation work in Oman with Logplan LLC.

2005 — 2010

System Design Manager, LCE Design · Project Manager, ICM Airport Technics

Wrote Sydney Airport's 20-year baggage handling master plan. Led teams designing checked bag screening systems, combining materials handling expertise with post-9/11 security requirements across Australian airports.

2000 — 2005

Airport System Design Manager, Siemens (USA) · Estimating Manager, Siemens Australia

Designed baggage handling security concepts for 429 US airports in the wake of 9/11. Returned to Australia and tendered the $60M Sydney Airport checked bag screening system among other large materials handling packages.

1995 — 2000

Design Engineer, Mannesmann Australia

Baggage handling carousel development for global deployment. Also worked on warehousing sortation, materials handling for mining (Supaflo Industries), and warehouse systems with Demag Australia.

1989 — 1995

Apprentice Draftsman & Mechanical Engineer, Colby Handling Systems

The foundation. Where everything started — materials handling equipment design from the drawing board up.

Formal + informal

Qualifications & how I actually work.

Qualifications

  •   Diploma of Mechanical Engineering
  •   Business Marketing & ManagementManly Warringah College
  • 2020 Innovation Through DesignUniversity of Sydney Business School
  • 2020 Digital ManufacturingAutodesk
  • 2024 Introduction to Artificial IntelligenceTAFE NSW

How I add value

  • 01
    Independence, structurally.

    No equipment commissions, no vendor allegiances, no preferred suppliers. Recommendations are based on what the site needs, not which rep takes me to lunch.

  • 02
    Cross-domain pattern recognition.

    Thirty years across warehouse, distribution, airport baggage, and freight. The same problems recur — layout, flow, capacity, throughput — in different disguises. Seeing them in more than one industry usually means spotting them faster.

  • 03
    Brownfield tolerance.

    Most warehouse problems aren't greenfield puzzles — they're live sites with constraints, existing MHE, and operators on the clock. I'm comfortable working around running operations rather than starting from a clean slab.

  • 04
    Short scopes, clear outputs.

    Most engagements are 10 business days to 8 weeks, fixed-price, with a written deliverable you can action. No open-ended retainers.

Get started

Tell me about the operation.

Thirty-minute call, no pitch, no obligation. Bring the floor plan, the pain points, or just the frustration — I'll tell you honestly whether I'm the right person to help.

Email Jason directly
Based Northern Beaches, Sydney · AEST
Coverage Australia-wide · desktop & on-site