Customer
Calumet
Industry
Oil & Gas
Key expertise
SAP TM
Go-live
01/2020
Country
United States
American oil company Calumet Specialty Products Partners was seeking to consolidate its rail transportation management into SAP TM over a short period of time and thereby rid the third-party logistics service. The partnership with Westernacher has been a tremendous success, achieving a high degree of automation and visibility of rail car movements as a result.
Transportation management process gets independent.
Calumet Specialty Products Partners is a leading independent refiner of high-quality, specialty hydrocarbon and fuel products in North America. The company operates 11 facilities in seven states with an aggregate production capacity of nearly 160,000 barrels per day. Calumet processes crude oil and other feedstocks into customized lubricating oils, solvents and waxes used in consumer, industrial and automotive products; produces fuel products including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel; and provides oilfield services and products to customers throughout the United States.
Customer focus was to bring all aspects of their rail transportation, which used to be managed by third-party logistics, into SAP Transportation Management within a short period. A high degree of automation and visibility of rail car movements were key value drivers for the business case and finally for this project.
Tangible results achieved within a short period.
The implementation journey started in Q3 2019 with Westernacher’s Rail Solution Package, designed to reduce the implementation effort and consequently, overall project duration significantly with the aim to meet the customer’s tight deadlines. Within days the project team was able to gain the confidence and trust of the client based upon a fast and robust demonstration of one of Calumet’s key scenarios using productive data within their own SAP landscape. Apart from rail specific solution components, Westernacher provided an EDI Invoice add-on TINA for the automation of carrier invoice validations, dispute management and posting to SAP ECC for freight pay and audit. Over a period of only 24 weeks Calumet and Westernacher were able to
- Improve visibility of rail car movement
- Increase reliability in ETA notifications on customer rail shipments
- Increase utilization of the rail car fleet while decreasing cost
- Save service cost directly due to automation and elimination of 3PL
- Provide additional insight on expenses through automated accrual process
- Decrease manual ledger adjustments at the close of each period
An “excellent partner” in SAP TM in no fear of unexpected challenges.
The hydrocarbon products refiner was very content with the outcome of this partnership.
Westernacher was an excellent partner in our SAP Transportation Management implementation. We had a short timeline and a lengthy list of requirements. As unforeseen issues arose, as with all projects, Westernacher was quick to provide solutions based on best-practices and previous implementations.
Kayleigh Ellis, Subject Matter Expert – Supply Chain Calumet Specialty Product Partners, L.P.
The secret recipe to the successful outcome, according to Ellis, is Westernacher’s solid expertise in SAP TM and strong support throughout. “Their expertise in SAP TM is undeniable, and their support through all aspects of the Agile Method Project helped to guide us to a successful implementation.”
After the successful go-live of Calumet’s rail transportation in January 2020, Calumet and Westernacher decided to build on this strong partnership and started the transformation of Calumet’s trucking processes across North America.
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