Indorama Ventures PCL [BKK: IVL]

Cristhian Gordillo

Supply Chain Authority

Cristhian Gordillo is the supply chain and procurement Director at IVL Mexico. Cristhian has 5 years of experience in the automotive sector and 20 years in procurement, energy and supply chain management in the polyester and petrochemical sector. She holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico.

Progressing in this dynamic age of digitalization can be confusing for many businesses. Many decision-makers are open but slow to incorporate the growing benefits of this evolution. In this article, Cristhian Gordillo showcases the different parameters followed at IVL to nudge employees toward a technology-driven future.

Diverse products for an expansive geography 

IVL (Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited), a global sustainable chemical company, is one of the world's leading petrochemicals producers, with a global manufacturing footprint across Africa, Asia, Europe and the U.S. The company's portfolio comprises integrated Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), olefins, fibers, packaging and specialty chemicals. IVL products serve major fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and automotive sectors, like beverages, hygiene, personal care, tire and safety segments. IVL is one of the world’s leading petrochemical producers with 148 manufacturing facilities.

Addressing a new need

The diversification of our organization and complexity led to the evaluation of needing a single enterprise resource planning (ERP). This meant creating a single source of truth, or one ERP, for all information to enable better decision-making in core operational business processes (procurement, supply chain and marketing). Migrating to a new ERP was not only for the sake of it but for the advantages of managing other businesses. But going from declaration to execution was very complicated.

As an organization, you cannot add complexity to processes, it is the other way around. During the project, the journey was full of challenges and testing times. It was too much and fast, driving us to make some mistakes. We are not all digital natives, because of the perpetual fear of technology replacing humans. Instead of solely leveraging digitalized benefits, I realized the need for agile people with out-of-the-box technological knowledge. 

"Migrating to a new ERP was not only for the sake of it but for the advantages of managing other businesses."

Everything under one digital umbrella  

This achievement marked four years or 1460+ days of hard work, dedication and collaboration. This journey commenced as a strategic mission to enhance the 'future readiness' of IVL and reinforce our market leadership. It has since evolved into a landmark project, leaving an indelible mark on the fabric of our organization. With a unified platform at our core, we will reap the benefits of accelerated decision-making, improved resource allocation, and increased responsiveness to market dynamics.

We successfully achieved our ‘One IVL’ goal of transforming the multisystem landscape into an integral digital core platform that supports standardization of the in-house data, processes and practices globally.

As a company, we cherish this moment.