The transportation and logistics cost are relatively high while the safety constraints are very stringent. The delivery requirements are increasingly stretching as customers require shorter lead times and increased flexibility, suppliers are asked to hold more inventory.

Such chemical manufacturers have little choice but to turn to services to fight the commoditization of their offering; the delivery capabilities are becoming a key differentiator: to deliver faster, more frequently and in a shorter time windows.

• "To optimize the supply chain, we needed to develop a high-level view of the entire network and analyze its constraints and associated unit costs," explains Mike Yount at Rohm & Haas. The Supply Chain Network Design and Analysis Team, was charged with defining a strategic model with enough flexibility to allow each of the company's 10 business units to evaluate and redesign its manufacturing and distribution networks.
• "Our effort was primarily focused on distribution, since that represented much of the complexity and cost in the supply chain," explains Alan Kosansky, a member of the project team. The resulting savings were in excess of several million dollars.