Tweet

Oct 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Charles E Wilson

View Chevron
Photo Gallery

Four Years ago, the Global Marketing Logistics team at Chevron Products Co made a commitment to build the best fuels distribution system in the world. While there is still work to do, they have made incredible progress.

One focal point of this effort is the Road Transport Safety Management (RTS) plan that sets out the company's expectations for operational excellence in all facets of Chevron fuel delivery system.

“We believe we are well on our way toward our goal of developing the best fuel distribution system in the world,” says George Wall, Chevron vice-president for global logistics. “The numbers show that our global distribution operations have improved every year for the past four years. We'll steadily ratchet up the process management, and we will continue to implement the technology and systems needed to be the best.

“We developed the RTS standard to set the bar for our worldwide distribution operations. It also helped us tie together our global fleet operations, which had grown significantly after we combined Chevron, Texaco, and Caltex into a single global organization. The standard gave us the ability to address what we felt was an unacceptable level of distribution incidents.

“We are making progress, but we want to constantly get closer to zero accidents and incidents. We want to have the most efficient and effective distribution operation in the petroleum industry by using best-in-class processes.”

Expanding program

Al Mosser, Chevron global equipment standards manager, adds that the next step is to apply the same unified global approach to Chevron's worldwide storage and terminaling system. “Transportation was just the beginning,” he says. “We want this type of management system to encompass our entire land logistics and distribution process.”

Entities covered by the Road Transport Safety Management plan serve the Chevron, Texaco, and Caltex brands. Fuels under the three brands are marketed in more than 70 countries around the world.

The worldwide fuels distribution operations are coordinated through Chevron's Global Marketing Logistics department, which is based in San Ramon, California.

“We've had a centralized dispatching system in the United States for many years based in Concord (California) using Aspen Tech and SAP applications,” Mosser says. “Regional dispatch centers for other parts of the distribution network are now being established in Capetown, South Africa, and Makati, Philippines.”