Sabic UK Petrochemicals, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of chemicals, fertilisers, plastic and metals, has become the first UK company to scoop a West Trax SAP quality award.

The company, which operates in Wilton and North Tees, achieved bronze level certification for demonstrating optimal and efficient usage of its SAP (systems, applications and products) system following its recent acquisition of Huntsman Petrochemicals.
Sabic successfully acquired Huntsman Petrochemicals in June this year, from which a successful three-month programme to clone the Huntsman SAP system was run by the newly formed Sabic UK IT team.
The cloning of the Huntsman SAP system provided the ideal opportunity to optimise the Sabic system for effective and efficient support of the business in the new environment, and to plan a system strategy and future upgrade path that might ultimately save Sabic a significant amount of money.
Sabic opted for the West Trax KPI (key performance indicators) Scan SAP optimisation solution that provides companies with a detailed understanding of exactly what is happening inside their SAP systems and allows them to make the most appropriate technical, operational and compliance choices. It does this by analysing the system’s real transactional usage and by benchmarking the system’s KPI against SAP systems worldwide both in the same sector and in other industries.
West Trax CEO David Long comments: “This is an excellent opportunity to baseline the Sabic system so that future plans could be developed upon objective information, and any improvement areas identified could be incorporated in those plans.”
When the KPI scan was complete, there was an unexpected but pleasant surprise for Huntsman’s process control manager Paul Ettridge: “We knew we would find problems to fix, but we were delighted to find that our system was already one of the best in two of the KPI’s measured. The scan results are very good - something for the team to be proud of. We also have a clear direction for improvement and a real incentive through the award scheme. We’re heading for gold now!”
Long adds: “This was a just reward for the hard work by the Sabic IT team. We are delighted to announce that Sabic UK Petrochemicals has been awarded a bronze level West Trax quality award. The award programme was launched in May with four companies already announced as early qualifiers, and we congratulate Sabic as our first winner in the UK.”
West Trax, which specialises in enabling firms to get more from their SAP systems, has created the certification and award programme to enable well-run firms to analyse and prove the effectiveness of their use of SAP systems to the wider world. The programme uses KPIs to show which businesses are getting more out of their SAP systems across industries, and the winners are awarded with either a gold, silver or bronze mark.
The programme analyses the effectiveness of seven SAP disciplines, including the degree of system standardisation and the proportion of custom developments in a firm's use of SAP.
Also under the spotlight is the proportion of unused customisation undertaken and the speed of any custom development, together with its frequency of use.
Organisations that qualify for a West Trax Quality Award can expect to benefit in many areas of their business. Lean business processes, improved cost structures, increased user acceptance and shorter project cycles will increase the organisation’s competitiveness and market opportunities significantly, especially in the global market where speed, quality and price are key success factors.
Organisations with outsourced SAP systems and their service providers will gain a key cost advantage. Transparent systems require less maintenance and as a result costs can be reduced
West Trax is a service provider delivering management consulting and IT consulting services.
Founded in 2003, the company combines many years of international experiences in the professional services business with state-of-the-art technology.