Engen

Better planning boosts a customer-first approach to operations

Engen is an oil company focusing on the downstream refined petroleum products market and related businesses. Committed to “put the customer first” since its origin 1881, Engen operates in 17 Sub-Saharan countries and is a market leader in South Africa. The company has a refinery capacity of 135,000 barrels per day and a leading-edge blending plant for lubricants that produces 8 million liters of finished product per month. With over 1,300 service stations in South Africa alone and an additional 250 spread across the continent, Engen was looking to improve its planning process.

Re-imagining planning capabilities

Engen was using an order planning and route scheduling system that had reached its end of life. Upgrading to a new system was crucial. The planning process itself needed a revamp, as most of it was done manually. They saw an opportunity to optimize inventory management and routes. This compelled the team at Engen to evaluate several vendors. ORTEC was chosen after an extensive selection process.

Embracing optimization

“The switch to ORTEC has made a remarkable difference,” says Engen’s Outbound Scheduling Manager, Helder Alves. “We chose them for their customer-centric approach and keen focus on building robust relationships.”

Engen chose ORTEC Stock Replenishment and ORTEC Route Scheduling to improve its planning process. Besides choosing us for our extensive experience in building analytics solutions for the oil and gas industry, Engen trusted us as a technology partner due to our wealth of knowledge in Vendor Managed Inventory solutions.

ORTEC Stock Replenishment uses a powerful algorithm to facilitate on-time deliveries for Engen’s customers, processing orders automatically and minimizing the chance of stock-outs. The system also ensures that orders fit in available storage and delivery vehicles, making planning more seamless. ORTEC Route Scheduling has improved the execution of the delivery schedule and ensures on-time deliveries at customer sites.

Fueling customer satisfaction

“With ORTEC’s solutions we benefit from increased planning capabilities. Furthermore, time savings enable our planners to better manage the execution of delivery schedules.” - Helder Alves, Outbound Scheduling Manager at Engen.

Increased planning capabilities have yielded significant time savings for Engen’s planners. The company has more insight into their logistics network and is equipped with more planning agility. This fuels customer happiness and reinforces Engen’s customer commitment. Route optimization has also contributed to lower emissions, improving the energy leader’s environmental footprint.