SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT to raw materials, to ensure they can confidently evaluate scenarios and respond to disruptions before layering in AI-enabled automation
A major pillar of Solvay ' s modern business strategy is sustainability. Through its‘ For Generations’ programme, the company is actively driving a transition toward a carbonneutral future by 2050, focusing heavily on circularity, environmental protection and climate change mitigation across its industrial operations. Sustainability is heavily integrated into Solvay ' s global sourcing and procurement, which covers approximately € 5 billion / year across 20 countries.
To ensure the seamless delivery of essential chemistry, Solvay utilises digital B2B systems that help facilitate real-time data exchange across procurement, vendor-managed inventory( VMI), distribution and billing processes, ensuring supply stays perfectly balanced with market demand. Looking ahead, the company is moving toward more advanced AI-powered planning to further accelerate decision-making and strengthen resilience.
Cross-functional collaboration
Prior to adopting a strategic shift in its supply chain management, Solvay navigated significant operational hurdles, relying on heavily manual planning with limited visibility across the supply chain. Tactical and operational scheduling ran in disconnected spreadsheets, leaving the company without the scenario capabilities to respond quickly and confidently when disruption hit.
To address these vulnerabilities and outdated processes, Solvay turned to OMP. OMP ' s Unison Planning explicitly models the intricacies of chemical production, giving planners complete visibility and control over complex processes, including conversion, separation, recycle flows, and operational bottlenecks. Planners can interactively adjust continuous production process parameters— such as reactor temperature, pressure and split levels— within the tolerances specified for each plant to optimise outcomes.
Value-driven planning enables companies to maximise margins while balancing strategic, tactical and operational constraints. This approach helps businesses plan their supply chains by steering products toward the best margins and the right buyers.
Scaling resilience
By adhering to the lesson that companies must integrate before they automate, Solvay established a rigorous data baseline that successfully prepares its supply chain for AI-enabled planning in the future.
This end-to-end visibility is most powerful when it is embedded in a decision-centric framework that enables proactive, autonomous decision-making. Advanced planning platforms use a reality-based digital twin with optimisation capabilities and ultra-fast scenario development and evaluation.
Decision-centric, always-on agents— people in supply planning, scenario planning, demand planning and data management— run continuously, sensing change and turning critical decisions into action via advanced machine learning and explainable AI. Additionally, integrating sustainability criteria into this framework ensures that businesses can maintain profitability while meeting environmental commitments.
By assessing variables, like expected price evolutions, labour shortages and unexpected events, in a digital environment first, organisations can determine the best course of action before a crisis fully develops. They are also better positioned to navigate complex compliance requirements and meet sustainability goals.
In the highly energy-intensive chemical industry, sustainability obligations— such as reducing carbon footprint, minimising waste and leveraging sustainable material sources— are rapidly becoming an inseparable part of the supply chain
optimisation challenge. Innovative chemical enterprises are already integrating sustainability KPIs directly into their decision-making processes.
Future-proof foundation
Global supply chains are at a turning point with growing global complexity pushing traditional planning to its limits. The shift to the agentic age is real and happening now. Gartner predicts that by 2030, 50 % of crossfunctional supply chain management systems will use intelligent agents to autonomously execute decisions in the ecosystem. By enabling autonomous planning with full transparency, agentic AI is transforming the future of touchless decision-making and helping organisations build resilience in an era of relentless market volatility.
I believe that digital transformation works best when people, processes, and systems come together. A highlight of Solvay’ s transformation is how cross-functional collaboration and solid data foundations unlocked measurable value early in the process. Ultimately, Solvay ' s ongoing roadmap proves that while technology enables the plan, people drive it. The result of this transformation is faster decisions, stronger resilience and measurable value. ●
J j
Robbert De Looff
CHEMICALS INDUSTRY COMMERCIAL LEAD
OMP rdelooff @ omp. com www. omp. com
JUL / AUG 2026 SPECCHEMONLINE. COM
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