ISSUE 1 • JANUARY 2018
SUPPLYCHAIN STRATEGY
RETAIL, CHEMICAL, TECHNOLOGY, SUPPLY CHAIN
JUST 6% OF FIRMS HAVE SUPPLY CHAIN VISIBILITY
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BayuAdam Magazine
Amazon's automated grocery store of the future opens Monday
JUST 6% OF FIRMS HAVE SUPPLY CHAIN VISIBILITY By Andrew Allen
The survey, which canvassed 623 supply chain professionals Full supply chain visibility has across 17 countries, found 57% risen from sixth most of respondents considered their important strategic priority in supply chain to be a competitive 2015 to third in 2017, advantage that would enable the according to a survey. development of their company. Two thirds of firms spent 5-15% However, only 6% of firms said of turnover on their supply they had achieved this aim, chain. according to the GEODIS 2017 Supply Chain Worldwide The survey found 67% of supply survey. chain leaders in companies were positioned either at the top management or corporate level. And companies that had appointed a supply chain leader as a board member were more likely to see earnings rise, while those whose head of supply chain was a middle manager seemed to be less profitable.
Seven in 10 firms considered their supply chain to be either very or extremely complex. Almost three quarters used five different transportation modes in their supply chain, with the two most popular being road and air freight. Eight in 10 firms were using between one and three KPIs to assess supply chain performance. The top five most important challenges were to contain cost increases, face global competition, adapt to changes in customer expectation on quality, meet customer expectation on reduced transit times and develop reliable logistics infrastructure.
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Ensuring on-time, in-full delivery remained the primary goal of respondents when asked about the top objectives demanded from supply chains.
Information security, predictive analysis, apps and addictive manufacturing, such as 3D printing, brought up the rest of the table.
This was followed by improving product availability or delivery, improving end-to-end supply chain visibility, optimising inventory costs and reducing transport and warehousing costs.
Only a small majority of respondents, 53%, declared themselves be engaged in advanced innovative practices within their supply chain.
Asked about the next big thing in supply chain technologies, data analysis was ranked top by 41% of respondents. This was followed by internet of things and connected devices and cloud computing, which both scored 39%. SEATTLE (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc will open its checkout-free grocery store to the public on Monday after more than a year of testing, the company said, moving forward on an experiment that could dramatically alter brick-andmortar retail. The Seattle store, known as Amazon Go, relies on cameras and sensors to track what shoppers remove from the shelves, and what they put back. Cash registers and checkout lines become superfluous customers are billed after leaving the store using credit cards on file. For grocers, the store’s opening heralds another potential disruption at the hands of the world’s largest online retailer, which bought high-end supermarket chain Whole Foods Market last year for $13.7 billion. Long lines can deter shoppers, so a company that figures out how to eradicate wait times will have an advantage.
And even practices like process mapping or lean management are far from being universal, being implemented by 60% and 55% of respondents respectively.
“These moderate results could be explained by the fear of implementing uncertain practices, particularly while the current growing necessity of ensuring a reliable supply chain exists,” said the report. “However, first-in-class companies are agile and ready to invest in order to implement optimisation of their supply chain.” Source : https://www.cips.org/enSG/supplymanagement/news/2017/may/ju st-6-of-firms-have-achievedsupply-chain-visibility/
AMAZON’S AUTOMATED GROCERY STORE OF THE FUTURE
Amazon did not discuss if or when it will add more Go locations, and reiterated it has no plans to add the technology to the larger and more complex Whole Foods stores. The convenience-style store opened to Amazon employees on Dec. 5, 2016 in a test phase. At the time, Amazon said it expected members of the public could begin using the store in early 2017.
The 1800-square-foot (167square-meter) store is located in an Amazon office building. To start shopping, customers must scan an Amazon Go smartphone app and pass through a gated turnstile. Ready-to-eat lunch items greet shoppers when they enter. Deeper into the store, shoppers can find a small selection of grocery items, including meats and meal kits. An Amazon employee checks IDs in the store’s wine and beer section.
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Sleek black cameras monitoring from above and weight sensors in the shelves help Amazon determine exactly what people take. If someone passes back through the gates with an item, his or her associated account is charged. If a shopper puts an item back on the shelf, Amazon removes it from his or her virtual cart. Much of the store will feel familiar to shoppers, aside from the check-out process. Amazon, famous for dynamic pricing online, has printed price tags just as traditional brick-andmortar stores do.
SAUDI ARAMCO SIGNS CRUDE-TO-CHEMICALS TECHNOLOGY AGREEMENT
DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Aramco [IPOARMO.SE] signed a deal on Thursday with two U.S. firms for pilot use of a technology to convert crude oil to chemicals, helping the state company to expand its petrochemical business.
Aramco has been integrating its refining with petrochemicals to serve the company’s plans to expand its market share, as well as its efforts to expand its refined products portfolio.
Aramco wants to develop its downstream business as the government prepares to sell up to 5 percent of the world’s largest oil firm in an initial public offering (IPO) this year.
In November, it signed with Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) a preliminary deal to build a chemicals complex to convert 45 percent of crude oil to chemicals directly.
The $40 million agreement with CB&I and Chevron Lummus covers “technology that will directly convert crude oil into chemicals”, Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser said at the company’s headquarters in Dhahran.
“The use of oil in the petrochemicals sector is likely to become a key source of oil demand growth in the 2020s - in fact, growing by more than 50 percent over the coming two decades,” Nasser said.
Under the deal, 70 to 80 percent of crude intake will be converted into chemicals, with an eye to beginning commercialization in two years, Nasser said.
It wants to use oil as a major petrochemicals feedstock.
He said using oil as a feedstock would “secure a large and reliable home for our future oil production”.
“GROUND-BREAKING STEP” Aramco chief technology officer Ahmad al-Khowaiter said the process unveiled on Thursday called thermal crude-tochemicals technology - would cut capital costs by 30 percent compared to conventional refining. “Several layers of catalyst ... allow different aspects to be treated – sulphur to be removed, heavies to be cracked, to convert that whole crude in one operation... into a suitable feedstock for steam cracking,” he told Reuters in an interview. He called it a “groundbreaking step” that had not been attempted before and would give Aramco a competitive advantage. Aramco pumps about 10 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and plans to raise its refining capacity to 8 million to 10 million bpd from around 5 million bpd now.
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