OXEA PROJECT UPDATE: TRAVELING SALESMEN AND SCHEDULING
International Chemical Manufacturer Gains More Benefits
OBERHAUSEN, GERMANY – March 23, 2009 – Oxea, one of the largest suppliers of oxo-chemical products and olefin derivatives, just completed another phase of its supply chain planning roadmap. The global sales force has adopted Picaso RemoteCast™ to manage offline forecast analysis and demand plan updates. RemoteCast synchronizes key supply chain data down to sales reps' laptops enabling them to work on their forecasts while disconnected from SAP® and the corporate network. The tool provides secure offline ease of use, and the convenience of recent sales order analysis information at the finger tips of the sales reps no matter where they go. This increases sales rep efficiency and accommodates the fast paced world of commercial sales – allowing reps to upload their forecast changes at their convenience.
The supply chain teams are working together to define common processes for planning. This is happening in concert with the deployment of Picaso’s production scheduling, raw material planning, distribution planning, and inventory targeting modules at the Oberhausen site. The project is on schedule, within budget, and roughly half of the milestones have been completed. Oberhausen is the largest and most complex production facility in the Oxea supply network. The team is working to ensure that the scheduling model handles all the complexities of batch-wise production and sequencing, continuous units with variable rates, tanks with running gauge streams, by-products, and other constraints and dependencies. Also, the Procurement staff will have full access to raw material purchase recommendations based on the current actual consumption schedule. Tightening the links between purchasing and production should help contain raw material and working capital costs. Upon completion of this phase, the teams will turn their attention to rolling out the new processes and tools to all remaining production facilities globally.
An early benefit of the aforementioned efforts is the deployment of Picaso’s global distribution replenishment planning functionality. This capability has enabled the commercial group to be more focused on customers and planning sold-to sales and less concerned with supply side issues, sourcing of production, shipment lead-times, etc. It has also provided increased granularity and accuracy of outbound shipment requirements from plants to satisfy customer deliveries.
“I am pleased with the progress we are making” said Bob Gengelbach, Executive Board Member for Purchasing and Supply Chain. “We’re replacing spreadsheets so everyone is working with the same figures globally. We have needed these capabilities for a long time. Justifying such a broad program in the face of an economic downturn was difficult but WAM’s flexibility has allowed us to work at our own pace and make the program affordable. We worked with WAM on a conservative ROI analysis and I remain confident in those figures.”
About Oxea
Oxea Group globally manufactures and markets solvents, polyols and oxo derivatives such as carboxylic acids and alkyl amines for a large variety of applications. They are used in day-to-day products such as high-quality coatings, lubricants, cosmetic and pharmaceutical products, flavors and fragrances, dyes and plastics. Oxea was established in March of 2007 as a result of the merger of European Oxo and selected businesses of Celanese Chemicals. The company has proforma annual sales of about US$ 1.7 billion and employs some 1,300
people in the United States (Bay City and Bishop) and Germany (Oberhausen and Marl). These are supported by an experienced sales team in Oxea's most important markets worldwide. For more information on Oxea Group, please visit the company's website at
www.oxea-chemicals.com.
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About WAM Systems
WAM Systems delivers advanced supply chain planning solutions designed specifically for process manufacturers.
WAM's supply chain solutions are used throughout the global process industry, providing a broad set of visualization, decision support, and optimization tools that address the unique challenges found in managing complex supply chains. The company has an established track record of deploying its supply chain decision support and optimization technologies across a wide variety of process manufacturing markets including polymers, chemicals, CPG, pharmaceuticals, and oil & gas refining.
The company and its worldwide partners also provide a full range of consulting, support, training and implementation services.
Headquartered outside of Philadelphia, WAM's customers include Arkema, Celanese, Chevron Phillips, EvonikDegussa, Eastman, FMC, Honam, Indian Oil, Ineos, LyondellBasell, Kraton, Lonza, Oxea, PetroRabigh, Sasol and Solvay.
For more information on WAM Systems, visit
www.wamsystems.com.
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