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The introduction of SIMON

Shell Chemicals (www.shell.com/chemicals) manufac‑

tures the chemicals used by other manufacturers of 

many industrial and consumer products. Shell’s cus‑

tomers use detergents, solvents, plastics, and epoxy 

resins to produce everything from automotive paints 

and aircraft structures to diapers and plastic bottles.

According to IBM (1998) who developed the SIMON 

system for Shell, their shared vision for creating SIMON 

was to:

Use customer production schedules so that we could 

maintain an adequate supply of on-site inventory and 

provide seamless product availability at the lowest 

possible cost, and achieve customer-driven service 

levels if a customer wants product today or next 

week, we can fulfil that request.

Source: IBM (1998) Shell Chemical re‑defines Supply Chain Management 

with Notes. A customer case study, http://www‑304.ibm.com/

easyaccess/ukcomms/gclcontent/gcl_xmlid/91467, accessed  

June 28th, 2014.

Within such an organisation, supply chain manage‑

ment has a dramatic impact on customer satisfac‑

tion and profitability. Shell Chemicals have invested 

in SIMON, which stands for ‘Shell Inventory Managed 

Order Network’, for managing both upstream and 

downstream relationships.

SIMON was originally launched in 1995 using the IBM 

Lotus Notes Domino application server and is one of the 

earliest examples of a digital business application. This 

represented a change from the  industry‑  standard prac‑

tice of using electronic data interchange (EDI) forms, 

telephone orders and paper invoices. EDI didn’t give 

Shell the flexibility it needed to accommodate data on 

exceptions and up‑to‑date information about dynamic 

processes.