After the acquisition, the Company redesigned the procurement process for goods, work and services constituting the Supply Chain Department and centralised the Procurement units into a single organisation.
The system behind this process is aimed at ensuring objecting assessment of suppliers, both in qualification step and in assignment contracts, to assure them a fair opportunity once the required qualitative standards are met. Depending on the critical level of its commercial category, adding a new company to the list of suppliers is subject to a positive assessment of various preliminary, documentary and technical aspects. Suppliers are required to adhere to the “231 model” of Snam Rete Gas, to principles of Codes of Ethics and also to respect the work safety criteria, health protection and the international standards on workers’ right.
Once a contract is assigned, staying on these lists depends on assessments of the services rendered in terms of product quality, processes and meeting deliveries.
Supplying processes integration and sharing is not a serious obstacle for Snam Rete Gas Group since the acquired companies already use instruments coherent with the common strategies. The transparency, trackability and confidentiality level toward the suppliers, a fundamental value to maintain a positive relationship, is granted by the use of the most advanced data processing tools for the electronic negotiation managing.
The use of such tools led the value of allocated contracts by means of electronic negotiation to about the 90% of their total number.
Under the new organisational arrangement, about 1,400 suppliers won at least one Group contract in 2009, for a total order of € 1,907 million.
To face the deep and rapid changes in market conditions caused by the global crisis of mid-2008, we used our tools appropriately and modified some purchasing policies, without reducing the order volume among our suppliers.
ORDERS € 1,907 MILLION BROKEN DOWN BY COMPANY (%)
Snam Rete Gas initiated a project to review commercial categories, with the objective of promoting transparent cooperation, streamlined procedures, and efficient qualification processes. This concluded with the publication of the new commercial product tree on the website (www.snamretegas.it/it/lavora_con_noi/lcn_categorie_merceologiche.shtml).
The project was basis to detect new and up-to date criteria for the determination of critical levels to define personalized qualification processes. The aim was to direct the suppliers qualification process inspections according to the productive process importance or according the suppliers features, granting transparency and undiscrimination together with a sufficient evaluation of the applicants quickly and generally more efficiently. At end of 2008, an analysis of commercial goods categories was initiated, involving various company functions that had shown critical issues in terms of supply. When purchasing difficulties were linked to technical aspects, we sought to standardise the product not matching with the offer. In other cases, marketing intelligence analysis was started to identify new suppliers able to increase competitiveness thanks to a greater market.
In the Distribution sector, we launched various European requests for tenders to reach the objective of replacing the meters that were more than 20 years old by the end of the spring of 2011 (about 2,000,000 of the 6,000,000 installed) following the commitment we undertook on this subject with the consumer associations in December 2008.
The Company also issued a request for tenders for contracts to supply measurement and remote reading on all large-size meters, at the request of the AEEG. Finally, it formalised contracts with various sector companies to screen different technologies for remote reading of household meters, to identify the most suitable solutions for applying remote reading to household meters in general.
| CONTRACTOR INJURIES |
|---|
| TRANSPORT | REGASIFICATION | STORAGE | DISTRIBUTION |
|---|
Injuries
49 |
Injuries
0 |
Injuries
14 |
Injuries
25 |
Frequency index*
11.21 |
|
Frequency index*
16.04 |
Frequency index*
14.86 |
Severity rate**
0.35 |
|
Severity rate**
0.84 |
Severity rate**
0.41 |
* Number of injuries (not including commuting accidents), resulting in an inability to work at least one day, for every million hours worked
** Number of working days lost, from injuries (not including commuting accidents) resulting in inability to work for at least one day, for every thousand hours worked
Safety in contracted works
In managing suppliers, the Company’s businesses focussed on ensuring compliance with legal and procedural prescriptions on the subjects of health and safety.
In the transportation sector, activities continued to qualify new suppliers, issue new technical opinions during contract competition and checking on suppliers during the performance phase. These activities involved 34 assessment procedures of qualifying contractors, 169 technical evaluations during the tender stage and carrying out 20 inspections at the work sites of suppliers, to verify compliance with legal and contractual standards.
Specialised assistance was also provided to contract managers to implement the requirements of current legislation.
In general, safety meetings are held with the suppliers both before the work and during its performance, with periodic progress meetings, paying special attention to the specific risks present, to measures for prevention, protection and emergency response, to measures for coordination and cooperation taken in the places where the suppliers are working and to applicable health and safety procedural provisions.
The Company also continued information activities on providing health and safety in temporary and mobile job sites.
Analysis of the figures for accidents and injuries in contracted-out work shows a frequency index of 12.74 and a severity rate of 0.43. There were 84 accidents in 2009, unfortunately one of which was fatal, caused by a fall from the roof of a Snam Rete Gas building. This accident is still under investigation by the authorities.
In 2009, the accident indexes for transportation and regasification activities posted a frequency of 11.15 (-48% from 2008) and a severity of 0.35 (-35% from 2008).