Aberdeen-headquartered logistics and materials management company, ASCO, has recently completed a collaboration with multinational energy company, Equinor, providing a unique digital solution to the energy industry transforming materials management practice.

The co-developed digital solution, ‘iLMS Track and Trace', will facilitate a move away from the traditional energy supply chain model adopting a modern retail model providing full end-to-end track and trace capabilities for operations, maintenance, production. The new model will allow for real-time material visibility, control and process efficiency in a data and system driven process environment.

ASCO, working in collaboration with Equinor on a six-sigma approach, completely enhanced the business and process architecture for materials management both onshore and offshore, adopting the value adding principles from retail while meeting the specific needs of the energy industry to create a safer, leaner, better, and faster way of working.

The iLMS solution is integrated with Equinor's ERP system and enhances their business by providing far greater functionality, usability, control and simplicity using bar codes and handheld tablets. Matflo is a DAI-owned logistics automation software which is used extensively throughout the retail industry. DAI works with leading brands including ASOS, Tesco, Coca-Cola, Sainsbury's and Adidas and have been strategic partners of ASCO since 2012 in the development of ASCO's integrated logistics management system (iLMS) built on Matflo.

With offshore deployment due to commence next month (September 2019), ASCO Group Innovation Director, Allan Scott, commented: “ASCO's collaboration with Equinor is the result of a joint vision to transform materials management. The warehouse deployment has brought improvements beyond our expectations, one major process has improved from 15 minutes to 30 seconds. Training the staff to use the full system was completed in one day. The ability to control and manage materials in real time brings a wealth of benefits. The offshore deployment will be transformative to how we currently think, plan and manage materials offshore."