The Impact of Supply Chain Management on Engen Petroleum

Author: Kani, Nobleman
Supervisor: Professor Pieter Steyn
Date: September 2010

The report presents the results of a study of the Supply Chain Management system of Engen Petroleum, a petroleum giant in Southern Africa. The study highlights the benefits of structuring the organisation in a programme structure so as to overcome the current silo structure and attain a structure of cross-functional make up where individual business unit performance levels are better measured against the Balanced Score Card to test Supply Chain Management efficiencies, with other resultant benefits of this change being efficiency, effectiveness and continuous innovative improvement to the organisational processes.

To achieve the study objectives, the researcher conducted a literature review of the subject and then developed related questionnaires that were sent out to respondents as well as used as an interview basis. Internal customers, the employees were interviewed and external customers of the organisation being retailers were the respondents to the research questionnaire that was sent out via the intranet facility.

The surveys and interviews that were conducted on the subject of Supply Chain Management within Engen Petroleum revealed that some of the strategies in place to improve the Supply Chain Management within the organisation were still in their infancy stages and had not permeated to all the various divisions of the organization. In some departments within the organisation, a responsive behavioral pattern was identified, were intervention measures are implemented when errors are discovered.

Finally, the researcher presented recommendations to increase the awareness of Supply Chain Management within the petrochemical company, and to get the best value from the benefits of the entire programme structure that can be implemented in order to accurately measure the performance of this initiative to both internal and external customers.