Sasol

The 2011 INFORMS Prize is awarded to Sasol for demonstrating sustained, effective and creative use of Operations Research to improve decision making and impact the company’s bottom-line. For 60 years, Sasol has demonstrated its innovative spirit in the energy and chemicals sectors in South Africa and has grown to become the country’s leading fuel provider and an international player. Ensuring Sasol’s success requires that complex operations be managed across value chains, business units and sites. Sasol Technology’s Value Chain Optimisation Group applies Operations Research across the business for a wide range of topics such as improving polymer production processes, minimising the cost of stricter fuel specifications, and studying the reliability and sustainability of key units in the production process. The group has grown from a few analysts to a multidisciplinary team of over 30 specialists who are Sasol’s experts in linear programming, simulation, supply chain modeling, process integration, and human resource modeling. The team’s impact and reputation have also grown steadily, culminating in their recognition as Edelman finalists and as Sasol’s Chief Executive’s “Team of the Year” in 2010.

By awarding the 2011 INFORMS Prize to Sasol, INFORMS recognizes its widespread application of innovative world-class Operations Research.

2011 INFORMS Prize was presented to (L to R) Michele Fisher, Johan de Bruyn, Karin Kleynhans, Flip de Wet, Willem Louw, Hylton Robinson, Ester Vermaak, Patrick Veldhuizen, and Marlize Meyer, the team from Sasol, by INFORMS Prize Committe Chair Erica Klampfl at the 2011 INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research.

Declining fossil fuel reserves, stricter fuel specifications, fluctuating oil and gas prices, a recessionary world economy and unique developing world issues are some of the challenges for Sasol, a major producer of fuels and chemicals based in South Africa. Historically, the petrochemical industry based decisions on average production limits. Sasol critically needed a better method to understand and include the effect of variability and dynamics when making decisions. The company's Modeling Operations using Stochastic Simulation (MOSS) methodology is an application of O.R. that has helped to radically improve decision-making. Sasol has used this methodology to build three discrete event simulation models spanning its unique coal-to-liquids value chain. The value addition directlry contributed by MOSS models is over $230 million since 2000. Although unaudited, this estimate is conservative since the solutions have other benefits such as more efficient production resulting in cleaner and safer products. This work has been an innovative step forward for both O.R. and chemical engineering.

Sasol: Marlize Meyer, Hylton Robinson, Michel Fisher, Anette van der Merwe, Gerrit Streicher, Johan Janse van Rensburg, Hentie van den Berg, Esmi Dreyer, Jaco Joubert, Gerkotze Bonthuys, Lorraine van Deventer, Cecile Wykes, Ruan Rossouw, Ebert Cawood