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Chapter 6 Supply chain management
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Terminal Managed Inventory
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Repeat Order Entry
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Rail Car Fulfillment
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Delivery Schedule
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Invoice Management
Other applications available in the other Elemica
modules are logistics management, supplier manage‑
ment and sourcing management.
Looking at Elemica in more detail, there are three key
types of benefits
1
Global reach and connectivity
Our founding member companies are among the
industry leaders and represent a significant pro‑
portion of the industry’s buy and sell transactions,
creating substantial initial liquidity. This founda‑
tion provides financial stability and global reach
for Elemica, and the proven ability to scale quickly.
This combination will continue to attract many
additional buyers and sellers, resulting in an ever‑
growing reservoir of potential connections for new
customers.
2
Neutrality
Elemica is an independent company with a dedi‑
cated management team. Our network is designed
as an open network, embracing all industry buyers
and sellers looking for a robust infrastructure, net‑
work and e‑commerce solutions to improve core
business processes. Elemica is not an ‘aggre‑
gator’ of material purchasing, nor a ‘buyer’,
‘seller’, or ‘owner’ of products – it is a facilitator of
transactions.
3
Security
Elemica has incorporated state‑of‑ the‑ art security
measures to safeguard the flow and accessibility
of information so that participants’ individual trans‑
action data is not shared with any other company.
We have state‑of‑ the‑ art security features and pro‑
cesses, including highly visible firewalls and strong
data protection policies, a policy of confidentiality
regarding handling of customer data, encryption
technology to safeguard confidential data and
secured information with access limited by individ‑
ual user and regular independent auditing of these
policies and procedures.
Integration with marketplace portals such as Elemica,
which were not in existence earlier in the life cycle of
SIMON, became important to Shell.
Using an external, standardised supply chain man‑
agement system meant that Shell did not have to create
a bespoke approach through a systems developer and
integrator such as IBM, but could use a more standard‑
ised approach at a lower cost with less specification of
requirements.
Elemica could offer similar benefits to SIMON, i.e. it
could:
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Reduce transaction costs through reduction of
human input to transactions
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Standardise business processes
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Reduce error sources
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Improve response time
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Improve cash flow through faster payment
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Increase customer satisfaction
The article describes this example of the practical ben‑
efits the new system could bring. A company in Europe
shipped products directly from a Shell Chemical plant to
their customers. Shell Chemical make the product; the
company markets it and manages pick‑up from the plant
and delivery to the customer. Before the application of
Elemica, these additional process stages or ‘ hand‑ offs’
were required while each truck waited after loading:
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Paperwork was developed at the plant
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Then faxed to the partner company
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Then entered manually into their system
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Then faxed back to the Shell company – where the
truck had been all along
A further complication was that the partner’s offices
closed earlier than the Shell traffic office. So, truck driv‑
ers could sit for hours waiting at the plant until the docu‑
ments were faxed through! After switching to Elemica,
paperwork was automatically processed 24 hours a
day. Average truck‑ waiting times were cut from two
hours to 15 minutes.
In addition to the process benefits which would create
better customer service, Shell Chemical switched from
using SIMON to Elemica for supply chain management
since SIMON would require continued investment in
ongoing development and maintenance costs. Elemica,
as an outsourced solution, was more favourable in terms
of ongoing costs and development. Since Elemica is not
company‑ specific it also helped exchange of data since
formats could be standardised across companies.
Global positioning systems also enable details on the
railcar carrying the chemicals including current location
and estimated time of arrival. There are also links to road
hauliers. For example, a link with Bertschi AG, one of the
largest road transport logistics providers in Europe, ena‑
bles thousands of transport instructions generated every
month to be sent automatically, removing the need for
manual faxing and reducing the potential for errors.
Bertschi transport planning manager, Stefan Bryner,
explains the benefits as follows:
‘It has reduced our paperwork and made the whole
process more transparent. The potential for errors
has been reduced and issues are easier to resolve.’
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