Region-specific shutdowns, supply disruptions and shortages created by volatile demand are just some of the new challenges facing project execution, efficiency and capital expenditure returns on investment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a recent discussion at Downstream USA 2021, procurement experts explained key challenges facing downstream project procurement leaders and the lessons they have learned about risk mitigation during the pandemic.
According to Mark Cotugno, global procurement leader - capital for Chemours, the supply chain looks drastically different than it did five years ago.
"What we're dealing with now is continuous change," Cotugno said. "We have to be really proactive in engaging suppliers to ascertain any gaps or deficiencies they might have and be able to source other suppliers really quickly."
Furthermore, Cotugno predicted that the state of the supply chain was unlikely to change over the course of the next few years.
"Two or three years from now, this is not going to change," he said. "This is going to be the 'new normal.' Five years from now, we hope things will start to get better."
Lisa Williams, strategic sourcing director for Dow Chemical, agreed that the recent changes in the supply chain will not be going away anytime soon.
"I absolutely believe that the changes we're making are irreversible, and perhaps they're changes we've needed to make for quite some time," Williams said. "Five years from now, companies that are still competitive will have made investments in overall productivity by focusing on their people, processes and technology. Our future workforce embraces that technology. The changes we're experiencing are here to stay."
Williams added that the pandemic forced her company to work with its suppliers early on to find potential solutions.
"Dow has been working proactively to prepare for and withstand this kind of change," she said. "We anticipated and planned for it so that we would maintain our services to our customers and investors - our top priority."
Cotugno said that his company has been helping its suppliers find their own alternate suppliers in the face of large-scale supply chain disruptions, working more closely than ever before with its sub-suppliers.
Furthermore, when COVID-19 travel protocols were put in place early in the pandemic, Chemours was forced to rethink its entire equipment inspection protocol - a change that might continue to be used in the years to come.
"We have a very stringent inspection protocol that we employ on all of the equipment that goes into our plants," he said. "Due to travel restrictions, a lot of the shops were shutting down and not allowing outsiders in. We quickly decided to come up with something that we call 'virtual inspection.' We came up with a completely new way to do inspections using iPhones and iPads. This enabled us to continue to do the same inspections we needed to do. The side effect of this was that we ended up substantially reducing our inspection costs and carbon footprint.
"We will continue to utilize these techniques in order to execute our projects. As they say, 'there's always a silver lining,' and that was our silver lining."
Dow will also continue to use its lessons learned during the pandemic, with increased investment in digitization and employee welfare being of paramount importance, according to Williams.
"We are working very hard to make sure our people have what they need to safely and productively run our assets," she said. "We're investing in the employee experience by conducting regular surveys to gauge the health, well-being and perceived productivity within the work teams. Where we find gaps, solutions can be defined and implemented."
