NEW SABIC GENERAL MANAGER SMO VISITS V-LINE EUROPE
NEW SABIC GENERAL MANAGER SMO VISITS V-LINE EUROPE
Sehnde, Germany, 06/30/2005
SABIC Shared Services General Manager of Supply Management Ahmed Al-Gatai visited Hannover last week for meetings with the top managers and staff of V-LINE Europe GmbH. The meetings were held June 19-24th at V-LINE headquarters in Sehnde. He was accompanied by Mohammed Al-Anazi, Head of Strategic Buying - MRO. The visitors were hosted at a luncheon at Hannover Town Hall and were welcomed by Gerhard Gizler, Ministry for Economics, Labour and Transport of Lower Saxony.
The Shared Services Organization was formed in 2003 to provide common high transaction services to the petrochemicals and metals giant’s 17 Saudi manufacturing affiliates from a single operation for
its new ERP/SAP system. SSO encompasses Accounting Services, Employee Services, Engineering and Project Management, General Services, IT and Supply Management. Deployment of the services across all 17 affiliates has been carried out in two phases and will be completed shortly.
Mr. Al Gatai, a twenty-year finance/accounting veteran of SABIC wholly owned PETROKEMYA Group, the world’s fourth largest Polyolefins producer, was appointed to the SMO position recently and this meeting was one of his first visits with key suppliers. V-LINE has done business with SABIC for over twenty years, providing spare parts and other maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) supplies to all of the affiliate manufacturing plants. It received a 2004 Top Supplier Award based on performance.
The five day visit enabled Mr. Al Gatai and Mr. Al Anazi to undertake annual audit functions related to a procurement contract and to have useful exchange with V-LINE management about recent change at SABIC Shared Services aimed at smoother and more efficient supplier relationships. V-LINE was able to show the visitors its office, warehouse and IT facilities and to conduct sessions involving key staff in discussions about goals for continuous improvement in supply services delivered to SABIC.
At the end of the visit V-LINE Chief Executive Detlev Daues said “A highlight of the week for me was the opportunity to explore Strategic Alliance Agreement concepts under which V-LINE would be more closely aligned to SABIC Shared Services goals for improving MRO supply cost and performance for the full gamut of Saudi located plants and their entire European supplier base. A broader and deeper use of our cross-border core competencies in an Alliance could put both parties in winning positions.”
About SABIC
Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) was established in 1976 to add value to Saudi Arabia’s natural hydrocarbon resources. Headquartered in Riyadh, SABIC is today among the leading petrochemical companies in sales and product diversity - with global rankings: petrochemicals 7th, overall polyolefins 4th, polyethylene 3rd and polypropylene 6th. SABIC is also The Middle East’s largest non-oil industrial company.
SABIC is a multinational producer with 23 plants:Saudi Arabia-18, Bahrain-3 & Europe-2 (Germany, the Netherlands). Major product sectors are Basic Chemicals, Intermediates, Polyolefins, PVC and Polyesters, Fertilizers and Metals.Customers are on all continents, supported by a global network of logistic hubs, storage and distribution facilities and sales offices. The company operates four research and technology centers:at home in Riyadh and Al-Jubail and abroad in the USA and India. The total number of employees worldwide is 16,000 of which 2300 are in Europe.
SABIC is owned by the Saudi Government (70%) and private sector (30%). Private sector shareholders are from Saudi Arabia and other countries of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
About V-LINE
V-LINE EUROPE, headquartered in Sehnde nr Hannover, Germany was founded in 1979 to provide European sourced parts and equipment to industrial plants in the Middle East. Today, The V-LINE Group of Companies serves a worldwide customer base of capital intensive plants from two buying/ warehousing/logistics operations in Japan and the USA and its main operations and administration hub in Germany. It offers a range of services aimed at reducing procurement costs of cross-border (foreign-made) spare parts. V-LINE country marketing and customer support offices are located in Ocean,NJ-USA. Puebla-Mexico. Sao Paolo-Brazil .Osaka- Japan . Beijing-China.For further infor- mation visit our website www.v-line.com or contact by phone: International code+49/5138/7008-12.
