Improving the Supplier Sustainability Evaluation Process for the Energy Company

Abstract

The thesis focuses on supplier sustainability evaluation. The objective of this thesis is to improve the Supplier Sustainability Evaluation (SSE) part of the Supplier Evaluation and Selection (SES) process conducted by the Procurement team of Oil and Gas Sector of the case company. The case company if one of biggest EPCM (Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Management) companies in India that increases its focus on sustainability compliance of its suppliers. As part of the current supplier sustainability evaluation, this thesis suggests improvements to the current process and proposes a relevant tool.

To achieve this objective, this thesis first evaluated the current supplier evaluation and selection process conducted by the Engineering and procurement team and the Business Unit, as well as analyzed the current supplier sustainability evaluation part which falls under responsibility of the Engineering and procurement team. Based on the identified weaknesses, literature and best practice from energy companies was explored. The proposal for the improvements to the current supplier sustainability evaluation combined the findings from the current successful practices at that case company with the suggestions from literature and best practice, and further developed the improvements based on the stakeholder’s suggestions.

The outcome of this thesis is an improved Supplier Sustainability Evaluation (SSE) part of the wider Supplier Evaluation and Selection (SES) process at the case company. As mentioned in the company’s ‘Sustainability report 2017’, the company plans to implement the software for sustainability evaluation and implementation by 2020 (as part of the Supplier Evaluation and Selection process). This thesis work helps to achieve this target and also to meet the end customer requirements who are increasingly concerned with sustainability.