Transforming Sales and Operations Planning at Criterion
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- America
- Asia
- Europe
Country
- United States
Product
- Aspen Plant Scheduler
- Aspen Supply Chain Planner
Tech Stack
- SAP
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Customer Satisfaction
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)
Applicable Industries
- Chemicals
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Demand Planning & Forecasting
- Supply Chain Visibility
Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
Criterion Catalysts & Technologies (“Criterion”) is an international company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell. They are the world’s largest supplier of hydroprocessing catalysts that supply process technologies and catalyst services for a wide range of refining applications such as hydrotreating, hydrocracking, hydrogenation and isomerisation. Criterion Catalysts has more than 50 years of experience developing, manufacturing, testing, marketing and servicing catalysts that are used in every type of hydroprocessing operation.
The Challenge
Criterion’s goal was to implement a planning and scheduling solution that eliminated legacy tools and transformed their Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process into a world-class operation. However, significant challenges within their supply chain and scheduling processes had to be addressed. Prior to the use of Aspen Plant Scheduler, site scheduling was onerous and time-consuming, so the scheduling time horizon was limited to less than three months. Prior to a rigorous S&OP process, demand was also not represented very far into the future. These factors combined to provide an inaccurate view of available capacity against which supply chain had to perform multiple, daily ad-hoc quote feasibility (Can we do it?) analyses, leading to occasional over-committed situations.
The Solution
Criterion Catalysts standardized on the planning and scheduling solutions from AspenTech to help address their challenges. Initially, power users of the legacy systems didn’t embrace the new solutions and ended up forming obstacles to adoption. However, the benefits of the new planning and scheduling software soon proliferated with the emergence of new “super users” - schedulers and planners that embraced the new technology and promoted its use. The ability to view a six-month or longer time horizon, in combination with the ability to easily modify schedules, were important factors to adoption. Now, schedulers “can’t imagine living without the planning and scheduling solutions from AspenTech.” These solutions currently model eight manufacturing sites, five third-party warehouses and twenty-one productions lines across North America, Europe and Asia.
Operational Impact
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