Refinery Consolidates Instrumentation To Meet Growing Needs

A large refinery in the Northwest has a production capacity of 225,000+ barrels per day. To meet growing demand for distillates and to also meet environmental and regulatory compliance, the company began construction of a new Ultra low Sulphur Diesel Unit.

 

The main challenge the customer had was managing all of the materials for the project and sourcing products that complied with plant standards. Valin® is the blanket provider of Parker CPI fittings to this plant. The customer was initially pursuing a Vendor Managed inventory for all of the instrumentation with Gexpro, the Main Electrical Supply Contractor for the project. At the last minute, the company decided to scrap the Vendor Managed program. This put Valin® in a very difficult position as it opened up the bidding process to a number of Contractors.

 

Valin®’s mission was to demonstrate maximum value to the customer as their single source supplier. After obtaining a copy of their Instrumentation Project Materials List (IPML) we began to investigate the supply of additional products. The goal was to offer a total supply solution and differentiate ourselves from other bidders, consolidating their entire instrumentation package. We wanted to present the value of using Valin® as a complete IPML supplier. Working diligently with the local distributors of the equipment that we could not directly sell, we received all of their quotes and consolidated the package into a master spreadsheet. An appointment was made with the Project Procurement Manager, which gave us the opportunity to pitch/propose the value of our single source solution. The presentation was focused on three key advantages for the customer:

 

 

With some additional persistence and persuasion, the customer was ready to consider our consolidated package. We submitted our Spreadsheet Quote and were successful in gaining the business on this project.