DHAHRAN — Saudi Aramco participates as a strategic sponsor in the two-day Saudi Supply Chain Conference in Riyadh at Al-Faisaliah Hotel. It winds up today (Nov. 14). The event was organized by the Ministry of Transportation under the patronage of Dr. Nabeel Al-Amudi.

Ahmad A. Al-Saadi, Saudi Aramco Senior Vice-President, Technical Services, delivered a keynote at the opening ceremony. He said Saudi Aramco is bringing expertise in managing the most complex hydrocarbon delivery chain in the world, to the commodities and services domain to achieve supply chain excellence, adding that Saudi Aramco is focusing on three key strategies: Cultivating the supply chain ecosystem, leveraging technology and innovation, and promoting localization.

Describing the role of Saudi Aramco's Oil Supply Planning and Scheduling Operations (OSPAS) control center, Al-Saadi said "OSPAS monitors our entire hydrocarbon supply chain ecosystem using a sophisticated SAP technology based platform that allows integrating our mid and long term planning and scheduling activities, track the production from all our domestic refining and gas operations facilities, manage the inventories at domestic and international storage facilities using terminal management systems, and also utilizes GPS technology to track the movement of trucks and oil tankers in the transport of our products."

To further strengthen the Kingdom’s capabilities and take full advantage of its unique position, Saudi Aramco has been working with various local and international entities to grow its supply chain ecosystem. For example, Saudi Aramco has partnered with Bahri, Hyundai Heavy Industries, and Campbell in the development of King Salman International Complex for Maritime Industries and Services.

Saudi Aramco has always viewed technology as a key enabler to achieve highest levels of productivity in our supply chain operations. Al-Saadi said: "Perhaps our most significant step towards leveraging technology and achieving supply chain excellence is our new eMarketplace initiative. eMarketplace is an innovative Business-to-Business (B2B) collaborative framework to promote trading among business partners to serve the whole Kingdom, and deliver core capabilities across the Supply Chain."

The main building block of Saudi Aramco's localization strategy is the In-Kingdom Total Value Add (iktva) program. A flagship program that was launched two years ago to develop “in Kingdom” services and manufacturing capabilities. IKTVA is defined as the added value brought to the Kingdom by a supplier, and is measured by the amount of spend in areas covering goods and services, training and employing Saudi nationals, research and development, as well as helping develop the capabilities of local suppliers.

Al-Saadi said: "With IKTVA, we have established the mechanism to institutionalize local content at the heart of our supply chain processes, and made it a requirement for doing business with Saudi Aramco going forward. A key enabler for this effort was the establishment of the Saudi Aramco Entrepreneurship center, or Wa’ed, to help in turning innovative business ideas into established small to medium enterprises, through financing and incubating businesses in Saudi Arabia in various sectors relevant to our business and the society."

Saudi Aramco's Vice President, Procurement and Supply Chain Management Abdulaziz Al-Abdulkarim also participated in a panel discussion entitled "SCM Developments in the Kingdom on the Way to Reach out Vision 2030." — SG