We had an impressive lineup of Aspen Supply Chain Management (SCM) customer speakers and presentations at OPTIMIZE 2021. In designing this year’s SCM track, we had three primary goals.

 

1. Share insights on the supply chain challenges and optimization opportunities present in different industries. As Senior Director of Product Management for Aspen Supply Chain Management, I wanted attendees to learn supply chain insights from AspenTech SCM customers operating across several industries including: Lubricant base oils, Polymers, Specialty Chemicals, Consumer Packaged Goods/Food and Beverages and Automotive. Other industries in which Aspen SCM is used include pharmaceuticals, Liquified Natural Gas, Petroleum Refining, Metals, etc. The companies that presented in the OPTIMIZE 2021 Aspen SCM track included:  FP Corporation, Hexion, SABIC, ILBOC, DuPont, Albemarle, Altria and Nemak.
2. Share insights on how optimization and advanced analytics are being leveraged in various planning processes. I also wanted attendees to learn from Aspen SCM customers how their organizations leverage optimization and advanced analytics in the areas of long-term strategic planning and economic evaluations, medium-term tactical planning (also known as Sales and Operations Planning/S&OP or Integrated Business Planning/IBP), as well as in short-term planning and scheduling (also known as Sales and Operations Execution).
3. Showcase the work and expertise of the Aspen SCM Implementation and Integration Services Ecosystem. Finally, I wanted to showcase the work and expertise of the Aspen SCM implementation and integration services ecosystem. These are supply chain experts that work collaboratively with Aspen SCM customers to help them achieve new levels of supply chain agility and profitability. The partners featured in the customer presentations included: Time Commerce, Profit Point, Logexsoft, Delevant and AspenTech Professional Services.

 

 

 

Customer presenters provided insights related to numerous supply chain management business processes; eight Aspen SCM customers presented at OPTIMIZE 2021 and shared success stories on how they use AspenTech Supply Chain Management (SCM):

 

FP Corporation:  Our strengths in the supply chain and FP Corporation recycling

• FP Corporation is Japan’s largest producer of food tray containers used by supermarkets and convenience stores.
• AspenTech and FPCO are 2020 winners of the Supply and Demand Chain Executives Green Supply Chain Award.
• FP Corporation uses Aspen SCM to optimize total costs, including production cost, transportation cost, inventory cost and mold transport cost. Every week, Aspen SCM identifies which of their 12,000 SKUs need to be manufactured.
• FP Corporation President Mr. Morimasa Sato stated: “I believe that our supply chain, including AspenTech’s SCM system, is a great strength.”

 

 

Albemarle:  Albemarle’s Bromine Specialties GBU adopts strategic manufacturing optimization to drive cash flow and margin improvements

• Albemarle’s previous strategic economic evaluation tools were static, not connected to current data, required very extensive simplifying assumptions, had no optimization capability, and required large resource investments for complex scenario evaluations.
• An Aspen Supply Chain Planner optimization solution was implemented which accurately reflects the manufacturing and logistics constraints. The optimized economic evaluation results are rolled up into a full business Profit and Loss (P&L) model.

 

SABIC:  SABIC uses AspenTech SCM solution for its Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) process to optimize Engineering Thermoplastics and Specialties business units

• SABIC has been using Aspen Supply Chain Management (SCM) for over 15 years to economically optimize their extensive supply chain.
• Aspen SCM is a critical enabler to their Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) process and what-if scenario analysis evaluations.

 

Hexion:  Enabling Agile – How Hexion uses Sales and Operations Execution (S&OE) to enable business transformation

• Javier Invernizzi (Global VP Supply Chain at Hexion) explained to Steve Banker (ARC Advisory Group’s VP of Supply Chain) how Hexion uses AspenTech SCM at the majority of their manufacturing sites in order to daily optimize their production schedules and enable S&OE processes.
• According to Hexion, where Agile helps an S&OE process are the conversations and mechanism by which they prioritize what S&OE elevates. S&OE is a series of daily/weekly meetings that are supported by tools, where the outcome is alignment on the priorities of what needs to be solved.

 

Nemak:  Nemak’s “OP1” initiative – A fully integrated production planning and scheduling solution for transforming the operations culture

• Nemak is a Lightweighting Solution Provider to the global automotive industry, with a large-scale aluminum foundry plant in Mexico.
• In 2019, Nemak partnered with AspenTech and Profit Point to join them on this journey, naming this initiative Operational Planning 1 (OP1). Among other key initiatives, the OP1 journey, so far, has demonstrated a complete turnaround on operational results, and it has repositioned Nemak Mexico as the preferred choice for their customers.

 

DuPont:  Rapidly rolling out the latest generation of Aspen Plant Scheduler to DuPont Resin’s global user community

• AspenTech's plant scheduling software has been in place at DuPont, helping to schedule more than 15 Resins production areas, since the mid-1990s, over 20 years.
• In 2020, DuPont Resins was running an older version that was due to be upgraded to the latest version of Aspen Plant Scheduler™.
• DuPont selected Aspen Supply Chain Management (SCM) implementation partner Profit Point, and in less than six months the project was completed, with the successful roll out of the solution to DuPont’s global user community.

 

ILBOC:  Preparing for future challenges of the Base Oils industry – Comprehensive planning and scheduling optimization

• ILBOC implemented Aspen SCM as the planning and scheduling solution to meet the future challenges of the base oils industry.
• The Aspen Supply Chain Management (SCM) solution is considered by ILBOC a breakthrough that combines operational aspects with economics, integrates process data information and enables the exchange of information with customers in a more efficient, traceable and consistent manner.
• The solution is integrated with ILBOC's SAP ERP system.

 

 

 

Altria:  Aspen Supply Chain Management drives critical planning, scheduling and procurement processes at Altria

• Altria has been using Aspen Supply Chain Management (SCM) for the last 25 years.
• Altria is leveraging the power of Aspen SCM to drive critical Supply Chain Management processes and continues to adapt and evolve these applications in line with business and environment changes.

One conference attendee reached out to me and let me know that these customer supply chain presentations were quite insightful and helped her team gain fresh perspective on optimizing their own supply chain! I hope the presentations provide you with the same value.

Please note that all these recorded sessions will only be available on-demand until June 30th, 2021. You can still register to watch OPTIMIZE content here.