SAP Industry Innovation Awards

The SAP Industry Innovation Awards honor organizations that are intentionally using technology to transform their businesses, employees, and communities. After collecting public nominations, a panel of industry experts reviewed each submission, and then the winners were announced and recognized at the 2019 ASUG Best Practices: SAP for Oil and Gas conference. Do you have an innovative story that deserves recognition? Submit your nomination for a chance to be featured in 2020.

The Purpose-Driven Award:
Love’s Travel Stops

With an ever-increasing amount of data being made available, keeping track of turnarounds and understanding their impact on supply is becoming more and more difficult. In addition, real-time, human-provided information such as IM and tweets only serves to further cloud the picture. In order to solve this, Love’s Travel Stops integrated data from both Genscape and Internet Routing Registry (IRR) in real time, along with human intelligence, in an easy-to-use form factor, which adjusts to the device the user was on. This allowed traders to quickly see upcoming outages along with their impact on supply. In addition, they can see outages that have ended prior to their start date or have gone on longer than their planned date. With this success in place, Love’s Travel Stops has earned the Purpose-Driven Award for its solution.

Excellence in Operations Award:
Cairn Oil & Gas, Vedanta Ltd

Cairn Oil & Gas’ vision was to enhance their country’s production from existing 25% to 50% and also reduce its operating costs, they realized that AI, machine learning, and optimization technologies could play a significant role in various streams of its operational processes. One such optimization problem was managing rig schedules for carrying out well workovers to increase the production. The team was able to identify and solve a number of business processes, enhance resource efficiency (including the organization’s rigs), and improved and optimized scheduling frequency. In acknowledgement of these successes, Cairn Oil & Gas earned the Excellence in Operations Award.

Pioneer of the Year Award:
Chevron

Chevron is on a digital transformation journey that includes ERP transformation, enterprise asset management, procurement, HR, and finance. Chevron is approaching the move to cloud by incorporating leading cloud platforms and aligning the business for transitioning from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA while incorporating a new agile approach to ERP projects. Chevron’s goal is to accelerate platforms and digital infrastructure to enable scalability in all areas of the business to: foster agility and innovation, enhance decision-making by leveraging real-time data and simplify business processes. Because of this, the company has been awarded the Pioneer of the Year Award for forward thinking on its digital transformation journey.

Thomas Madonna leads the Manufacturing SAP practice at Infosys which includes growing talent, establishing consulting business and overseeing program execution activities in key business offerings. He has led process transformation programs within finance, supply chain, manufacturing, aftermarket and warranty areas for OEM, Suppliers, and Aftermarket organizations. Thomas has published multiple white papers within the User Group communities for both SAP and Oracle, as well as presented on topic business and technical topics. With over 30 years of experience, Thomas has managed over 400 full life cycle projects/programs within package and custom area, as well as leading aftermarket and warranty programs at two of the largest OEMs in the world.

As Program Director of Service Innovation & Connected Products, Aly Pinder Jr leads IDC research and analysis of the service and customer support market for the manufacturer, which includes topics such as field service, warranty operations, service parts management, and how these service areas impact the overall customer experience. Aly is responsible for research which aids manufacturers as they evaluate innovative technologies like 3D printing for service operations, augmented and virtual reality in field support, and the use of IoT and advanced analytics for remotely monitoring and managing assets. He establishes a roadmap for the manufacturer to better understand how technology can transform service and support functions to drive exceptional customer experiences and customer value, profitable revenue growth, and improved efficiency in the field.

Uli Muench serves as Global Vice President of SAP’s Automotive Industry Business Unit. During his 20+ year career he has held direct P&L leadership positions spanning key roles at Deloitte, IBM and SAP in Europe, North America and Asia. Uli has an extensive record of advising automotive OEMs and suppliers - from developing strategic roadmaps to planning and performing global software implementations and business transformation programs. At SAP he leads a global team of highly experienced SAP Solution Managers supporting the automotive ecosystem in leveraging SAP technology and driving new, innovative solutions to market. Uli holds an MBA from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and a M.S. in Engineering Management from the Mannheim University of Applied Sciences in Mannheim, Germany. He is an avid cyclist and runner. He lives in the greater Philadelphia region.