CASE STUDY : PIRATES OF THE SILVERLAND (PALM OIL PIRACY)

Company’s Introduction
Palm Haul Sdn. Bhd. (PHSB) was a family-owned small and medium sized enterprise in the crude palm oil (CPO) transportation business located in Taiping, Perak. Established in 2002, it had about 200 employees which most of them were tanker drivers. On the average, PHSB transported 3000 tonnes of CPO from palm oil mills to the respective refineries that purchased the oil from oil palm plantation companies and cooperative mills. The company actually facing alarming problem with the quality of consignments to the refineries where the CPO either delivered short or contaminated with water or sludge.

Statement of the problems
Oilene refineries as one of PHSB’s major customer seriously affected by the bad consignments as they had to shut down the plant to clean out the sludge almost on a weekly basis and this was affecting their delivery timelines as well as the quality of the oil they produced. On top of that, there had been many occasions where the consignment delivered did not tally with amounts listed on the delivery orders.
Oilene management had to decide whether to renew contract with PHSB which is due in June or to hire other CPO transportation company such as Tiger Oils Transporter which reported a more reliable transporter.

Recommendations for Oilene 1. Contaminated CPO

To overcome the problem caused by contaminated consignments that shutdown the eventually shutdown the whole production, the company can invest in Palm Oil Monitoring System. Upon unloading the tanker at the refinery station bay, the custody transfer process take place. The system was able to monitor the volume and water content of the delivery to ensure that it meets the specifications. This can be done manually or automatically using online quality monitors attached to the outlet pipes of the truck