Chem supply practices lag behind others - survey

15 April 2008 13:37  [Source: ICIS news]

DUSSELDFORF (ICIS news)--Chemical supply chain practices are lagging behind other sectors and failing to meet the industry standard, according to a survey on Tuesday.

 

The LogiChem 2008 Benchmarking Survey, carried out with management consultants Accenture, showed that inventory levels  of 35 days were almost twice the 20 days recommended by industry best practice.

 

Accenture said higher than optimal inventory levels were frequently a symptom of issues in upstream supply chain planning processes.

 

Resolving these chronically high levels requires work in areas such as customer segmentation, inventory management, demand planning and using an appropriate distribution network strategy.

 

It said that demand planning continued to plague supply chain efficiency and was likely to do so in the foreseeable future.

 

The chemical industry also lacked the appropriate level of sophistication in optimising its outbound logistics, the study showed.

 

Accenture found that the use of mathematical modelling to optimise distribution networks was rarely used in the chemical sector, despite their increasing complexity.

 

Supply chain technologies continue to disappoint and those available remained under-utilised and are rarely scored as excellent, the survey found.

 

LogiChem said that 58 companies participated in the survey, half from the speciality chemical sector and 11% in polymers.

 

LogiChem's 7th European Chemical Logistics & Supply Chain conference is taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday.

 

By: Elaine Burridge
+44 20 8652 3214

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