Chemicals Business, SCG: Hub for Thailand's Digital Solutions

A new-normal business approach that increasingly gains ground since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic is the embracement of digital technology in all corporate activities. A broad spectrum of such adoption shares one common goal: to keep business going as usual.

Chemicals Business, SCG, is one of Thailand's leading companies that "thinks and moves fast" in developing and implementing digital technology to better streamline operations more efficiently. At the same time, such an approach helps promote and works in alignment with the public measures that aim to encourage all sectors toward a more digitized social environment.

Digital Solutions for Office

SCG consistently promotes the adoption of digital technologies to keep office processes going. Before the pandemic, some companies' units have started incorporating digital platforms to better streamline their functions. And now, adhering to public pandemic prevention guidelines is obligatory; a prompt start toward digitalization has helped the company facilitate the transformation more effectively.

The shift from offline toward online activities involves several functions such as multi-level meetings, submission for document approval, the transaction with the accounting department, or hosting events such as MoU signing or product or service launch. Digital technology has played a principal role in enabling SCG people to work remotely and seamlessly. Also, this progress, in a way, has enhanced and increased employees' digital capabilities.

Digital Solution for Plants

Apart from digital technology being integrated into the office functions, Chemicals Business, SCG, also incorporate it on top of the Internet of Things (IoT) into the production process to strengthen competitiveness in several areas.

One of the digital platforms Chemicals Business, SCG, innovated is Digital Reliability Platform (DRP). This platform collects all plant machinery data and production lines to ensure an efficient end-to-end operation. The platform is developed by the collaboration between Chemicals Business and several global partners, of which one of them is AVEVA, the global leader in engineering and industrial software. The program can help address Asset Performance Management (APM) issues in an end-to-end manner to predict equipment heath, monitor performance, and enable advanced maintenance across its operations to eliminate unplanned downtime.

"This is a great achievement for Chemicals Business, SCG, since reliability is a critical element to our business. With the innovative approach of the Digital Reliability Platform, we are confident that we can eliminate the business risks posed by unplanned downtime. In our quest for a partner, AVEVA was the only company to provide an end-to-end solution spanning engineering, operations, and maintenance. With the DRP, we have successfully brought together big data, AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics into a practical solution that will empower our workers and improve our performance," said Mongkol Hengrojanasophon, Vice President – Olefins Business and Operations, Chemicals Business, SCG.

Digital Solutions for Customers and Vendors

Chemicals Business, SCG, integrated Digital Commerce Platform (DCP) to connect purchase orders to the supply chain data management, reducing process time by 70% and addressing customer needs. Customers can track their orders from anywhere, any anytime in line with a new-normal work process. Chemicals Business also uses the database for analysis to deliver a faster and more well-defined value chain management system.

For vendors, SCG, led by Chemicals Business, has rendered our expertise and plant operation and production know-how into the development of ROOTS, a simplified marketplace platform for industrial products that deliver accurate and speedy operations, cutting over 50% of product procurement time. Notably, the platform allows users to check prices with adequate management transparency.

Digital Solutions for Social and Environment

Social and environmental concern is another crucial mission SCG has continuously carried out and reflected through various initiatives. Amid alarming environmental challenges in recent years, the company has set its ambition to conduct business following ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) and meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by earnestly and comprehensively fulfilling circular economy principles.

Among digital technology solutions integrated to address social and environmental problems, one of the notable examples is KoomKah, an application that works to enhance waste bank management and simplify data collection. What's more, ReadyPlastic is another online marketplace for non-prime plastic aimed at facilitating plastic recyclers. These two digital solutions are designed to improve circularity and resource efficiency based on the circular economy concept. 

The transitional move toward a more digital future of Chemicals Business, SCG, will help develop the potentiality of the employees, the company's great asset, for increased growth. It will also raise the organization's role as a country's top-tier company that encompasses digital technology to ensure business-as-usual operation and sustainability across the entire range of value chains.