Digital supply chain poised to change the energy industry
Angeline Goh is Global 3D Printing
Technology Manager for Shell . She started exploring the potential of 3D printing Technology for the energy industry in her previous role , where she was looking at opportunities to improve the business performance of supply chains through the development of new digital planning tools . Her work since then keeps demonstrating , use cases after use cases , how
3D printing technology can transform the way Shell manages its material inventory and transform the energy sector ’ s supply chain .
By Joanne McIntyre
Image © Shell
Angeline studied Mechanical Engineering , specialising in Production and Manufacturing . However , a course on rapid prototyping about twenty years ago planted the seed for a future career change . “ At that time , 3D printing was used for rapid prototyping ,” explains Angeline . “ I never imagined that one day I would be working as a Global Technology Manager for Shell , focusing on this technology ; sometimes , life takes an interesting turn !” Angeline had a diverse career with Shell accross multiple divisions and countries spanning 21 years . She started as mechanical engineer in various refineries and in the liquidified petroleum gas ( LPG ) business before becoming a supply chain professional eleven years ago . She then led a team as a supply chain operations planning manager for the Shell lubricants business in Singapore .
Focus on supply chain
“ I was motivated to focus on the supply chain because I wanted to learn how a business works and hone my commercial skills . I ’ ve carried out supply chain planning for our lubricant plants , covering the entire spectrum from managing strategic contracts to additive planning for the global lubricants business . Once I had a few years of experience under my belt , I joined Shell ’ s global supply chain Center of Excellence . That was at a time when Shell invested in improving its supply chain .”
Storage or waste ?
Shell defines the supply chain as the movement of materials , tools , and people to an asset or operational site , so they can operate effectively throughout the lifecycle of the sites , from commissioning all the way to decommissioning , explains Angeline . “ My involvement focused on improving one significant issue common to the energy industry : there is a large amount of working capital tied up in inventory . How can we free-up this capital ? By studying data on our operations , I was able to identify that items are stored in inventory for two main reasons :
• their perceived criticality ;
• the lead time for acquiring these materials is too long and drives the need to store them .
However , storing items in inventory is not an efficient use of spare parts . In fact , we found that many items are kept on the shelf for their entire life without being used . We are storing parts just in case . Supply chain studies show that between 20 % and 30 % of stored items in an inventory will never be used 1 ; when we compared this statistic
1 https :// www . netsuite . com / portal / resource / articles / inventory-management / obsolete-inventory . shtml
26 Valve World February 2023 www . valve-world . net