Impact of Digital Transformation on Pharmaceutical Retail in Myanmar

Adopting digital technologies is believed to enhance the service innovation practices and operational excellence of MSMEs and has a positive impact on competitive advantage and at least supported for survival in the market. The adoption of digital technologies seems accessible for MSMEs of Myanmar, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it made no choice to adopt it at least for business survival. The research has been done on the pharmaceutical retailers, B2B clients of Tharmadaw.com, on adopting digital technologies and to give recommendations as to further strategic solutions for pharmaceutical retailers across the country. The adopting behaviors, challenges, problems, current and expected solutions, gaps on the road to further adoption of advanced digital technologies were revealed. The research finding is to support implementing further solutions for the clients by knowing their behaviors and perception on adopting digital technologies to enhance their service innovation practices in order to gain better competitive advantage.

Rethinking Supply Chain Strategy to Face Global Challenges Imposed by COVID-19

COVID-19 has been perceived as a new menace to undertake business relations in the marketplace. Consequently, supply chains have been required to reevaluate how to manage their key functions to cope with harsh business environment under this pandemic outbreak scenario. Therefore, supply chain strategies have taken an essential role in achieving resilience, flexibility, responsiveness and sustainable operations. As a result, the introduction of new digital technologies has contributed to enhance organizational performance and to face COVID-19 challenges in global markets. The purpose of this chapter is to provide insights of current literature on supply chain operations by identifying strategic practices within this pandemic health outbreak crisis. The chapter introduces an overview of the supply chain key functional areas. Then, the discussion concentrates on describing a series of observations and empirical research developed by academics and experts on the topic. After that, supply chain strategic practices are analyzed, followed by a description of digital technology as a critical tool to achieve operational excellence and to compete in tougher market conditions. Finally, a conceptual model is proposed to ensure effective supply chain functioning and value creation across the entire firm’s operations. Conclusion are drawn to summarize the contribution of this chapter and to highlight the importance of rethinking new practices for achieving higher performance results. Future research suggestions are presented to advance the discussion and research in embracing new supply chain models under market uncertainty in terms of demand, supply and operations.

Using blockchain technology to drive operational excellence in perishable food supply chains during outbreaks

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the potential of blockchain technology (BT) to support the operational excellence in perishable food supply chain (PFSC) during outbreaks, by doing use-case analysis.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature review is performed to determine the dimensions of operational excellence in the food supply chain (FSC), then a single use-case analysis is conducted to explore the potential of blockchain in order to achieve operational excellence for PFSC during the pandemics by applying context, interventions, mechanism and outcomes (CIMO) logic.FindingsThe findings of this study reveal that blockchain capabilities such as immutability and transparency, visibility, traceability, integration and interoperability, disintermediation and decentralisation, smart contracts and consensus mechanism provide better sustainable operational excellence outcomes for PFSCs to be more responsive, flexible, efficient and collaborative to cope with the impacts of COVID-19.Research limitations/implicationsThis research employs only one real case with multiple PFSC participants. Statistical generalisation is not possible at this stage of the research. However, the findings are not restricted to this single use-case.Practical implicationsThis study provides a research direction to explore the potential of BT to achieve operational excellence in the PFSC during outbreaks and generates prescriptive knowledge for better managerial decision-making across the PFSC during outbreaks.Originality/valueThis research conducts semi-structured interviews with different participants in one blockchain ecosystem to understand multiple participants' perspectives of operational excellence within PFSC.

Fulfillment of Maintenance and Reliability Key Performance Indicators of Offshore Sites During Covid-19 Pandemic

This paper addresses the challenging situation that was faced by Maintenance Teams in Offshore Sites to maintain and ensure the optimal conditions of the plants, conducting Routine Preventative Maintenance (RPM) as planned, achieving Company and Operational Excellence KPIs in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic. A brief description of how the sites defined a new normal given the circumstances to ensure all work was met while tackling the numerous obstacles in order to keep operations running smoothly is iterated below.

Enhancing Gas Injection Compressors Performance by Lateral Thinking Resulting in 0.62 Million Barrels Oil Per Year Additional Production Capacity at Zero Cost

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4.0) in Oil & Gas Industry creates a dynamic landscape where Operational Excellence (OE) strives for stability, quality, and efficiency while continuing to serve an increasingly demanding customer. Operational excellence is a journey, not a sole destination. Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) Onshore, one of the South East Fields, oil production capacity was constrained due to the limitation of associated gas handling capacity of the compressors. Gas flow towards the compressor was not steady due to natural flowing wells non-steady behavior and this disturbance cannot be removed from the system. The situation was quite complicated. In order to produce oil, associated gas must be handled to avoid flaring. It was more than a challenge to increase the compressors effective capacity without any hardware modification. Since flaring is not permitted in ADNOC and running of huge capacity standby compressor was not economically viable, therefore, Field Operations by lateral thinking transformed this challenging situation into an opportunity and enhanced compressor effective capacity by expanding its operating envelope to handle additional gas. One innovative solution proposed by Field Operations was to expand the pressure-operating envelope of the machine to withstand high pressures without tripping. The idea was to increase the machine throughput by elevating the machine high-pressure trip set point along with Pressure Safety Valve (PSV) set point elevation. This submission shares success story of an oil field Operations in house efforts to enhance the gas injection compressor effective capacity by 600 MSCFD which subsequently increased the oil production capacity by 1700 bopd or 0.62 million barrels oil per year by Operational Excellence. Operational Excellence played its role with a value improvement objective. Rather than replacing successful practices and programs, Operational Excellence knitted them into a larger, fully integrated tapestry woven to increase value produced within the overall business strategy which is very evident in this scenario. This case study is blend of Operations Excellence and innovation representing Management support to employee to solve complex problems. Such support is always beneficial for the company and employee. Management of change process for followed to study, analyze and implement the idea.

Instrument Safety Valves Enhanced Maintenance Strategy

Emergency Shutdown (ESD) and Blowdown (BDV) valves are the final elements part of the Safety Instrumented Functions (SIF) in which are deployed in oil and gas assets. They are classified as safety critical equipment to prevent major accident hazards. The conventional method of proof testing these valves is to close/open them fully, and thus require a process shutdown. In general, planned process shutdown is only viable every two to four years. Such infrequent and limited tests lead to imperfect testing and degrade the reliability of safety instrumented functions. Accordingly, this paper presents the work done to develop a comprehensive maintenance strategy that addresses lifecycle management of safety instrumented function in operate phase which help reduce the potential of process safety incidents. In summary, the innovative approach presented by this paper offers best practice of safety critical system integrity management implementation to achieve the highest standards of operational excellence.

Capex-Free Production Facilities Optimization Opportunities by Exploiting Installed Automation Infrastructure and Unused Functionalities

Operational Excellence and Automation Excellence go hand in hand when it comes to enabling process optimization and cost-reduction opportunities in Upstream Oil & Gas Operations. As part of our Digital Journey in the Upstream Business, multiple streams and workflows have been created to successfully identify and explore the use of new technologies to foster collaboration, achieve higher levels of efficiency, lower operating costs, maximize production and asset integrity, improve decision making, and lower the carbon footprint of all of our exploration and production activities. While our Digital Journey has been highly successful in identifying, assessing and implementing new technologies and novel solutions, it has also made very clear, during the development of business-cases’, that a rather big number of existing and older facilities were not going to be good cost-effective candidates for the deployment of many of the identified solutions and technologies. As an established and rooted operator with a large number of aging facilities, these presented an additional challenge to dig deeper and look further for solutions to cover all of these remaining assets, no matter how old or small they could be.

Smart Digital Monitoring Tool

Smart Digital Monitoring Tool As the world is currently going through a wave of rapid digital transformations, finding digital solutions in the oil and gas industry today is more important than ever. Not only is digital transformation one of the main pillars needed to embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0), but it is also indispensable to achieve operational excellence. By connecting process parameters and physical assets with digital monitoring tools, more accurate insights can be gained, which enables real-time responses to challenges and proactive corrective actions. Different tools and multiple dashboards have been employed to monitor different focus areas such as crude quality, environmental performance, energy consumption, and critical process parameters and chemicals consumption. In spite of the several available tools to monitor and summarize the facilities performance and key performance indicators (KPIs), taking quick and proactive actions to resolve the issues and improve the performance remains challenging sometimes. This is because for digital transformation to have a stronger impact, it better be integrated across the whole business focus area. This means that a single and comprehensive tool will help identify areas for improvement — timely and quickly by the Operations, Maintenance and Engineering (OME) team. In line with Saudi Aramco's Operational Excellence (OE) program, and to produce oil and gas in an efficient, cost-effective, reliable and responsible manner, a comprehensive and creative smart tool has been developed to deliver energy with better quality, enhanced safety, improved reliability, continuous sustainably, and increased efficiency.