Echemi: A Chemical Supply Chain Service Company
Echemi is dedicated to making it one of the world's largest chemical supply chain service company. Strong industry trends-including increasing international competition, industry consolidation and higher customer expectations-continue to put pressure on chemical manufacturers to improve their efficiency and effectiveness, especially in the end-to-end supply chain. As these trends put pressure on industry revenue and profits, an excellent supply chain can have a huge impact on the performance of chemical companies.Chemical companies have invested a lot of resources to improve their supply chains, but many companies need to make further efforts to establish a well-functioning end-to-end process-including best practice customer service.
As further intensifying cooperation with leading chemical companies, we have developed a concise framework to help other companies move forward. The framework consists of 20 elements in five categories: strategy, networks, organization, process, and digital support. Focusing on any single element will not create excellence. Instead, the company must conduct a comprehensive assessment of the supply chain, determine which elements best meet its needs, and work within these elements to achieve performance and customer service goals.
With the globalization of the chemical industry, competition, especially from Asia and the Middle East, is intensifying, and raw material costs have become more volatile, increasing pricing pressure. At the same time, customers are asking their chemical suppliers to provide better services. This trend is undoubtedly driven by the service improvements they experience when dealing with other industries. Chemical companies are moving towards a more segmented approach in managing products, whether these products are commodity products or innovative specialty products.
These industry changes have put increasing pressure on chemical manufacturers, especially their supply chains. For example, due to greater pressure to cut prices, companies must find new ways to improve the cost-effectiveness of their supply chains. New competition and unsatisfactory customers will affect sales, so chemical manufacturers must improve their customer service performance in order to distinguish themselves from their peers, especially low-cost players. With the merger of leading companies, other companies must respond to the combined company's greater market power by differentiating different performance, reducing working capital, and improving asset productivity.
Chemical manufacturers had invested a lot of time and resources in supply chain planning in the past, but many manufacturers still have considerable room for improvement due to the industry's traditional infrastructure and growing market and product complexity. In addition, many companies do not pay enough attention to in-depth understanding of the customer's point of view. Therefore, the logistics and inventory costs of chemical companies are usually high, and supply chain indicators are not performing well, which directly affects customer experience, such as delivery time and delivery services. In contrast, today's outstanding supply chain leaders have lower costs, higher growth levels, higher efficiency, and higher customer satisfaction than their peers.
Although some of these differences reflect different business models, regions or product priorities, differences in how chemical companies' supply chains operate are the main determinants. By introducing lean processes, improving forecasting and planning, and integrating regional operations, the company has significantly reduced supply chain costs. Achieving unimpeded coordination between planning and manufacturing enables the company to increase the productivity of its assets. Making better inventory strategies helps companies reduce working capital and release a lot of cash.
