Shell trims its supply chain costs
In the midst of plummeting oil prices, Shell announced it will cut capital spend by $15 billion between 2015 and 2017. The plan also includes getting more value from the supply chain. Ben van Beurden, the CEO of Shell, stated that the company is taking a prudent approach to cost cutting and is ‘not chasing the costs for costs’ sake’. He reassured that the safety measures will not be compromised due to the cost reduction plan. Shell is not the only oil and gas company which will be reviewing their supply chain. BP and ConocoPhillips also announced they will be implementing optimization plans.
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Uber developing an autonomous taxi
Carnegie Mellon University announced a R&D partnership with Uber in the fields of vehicle safety, mapping and autonomy technology. Uber hired more than fifty scientists from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as scientists from the National Robotics Engineering Center, which will be working on the development of an autonomous taxi. The new research facility will be based in Pittsburgh, which provides more potential secrecy than Silicon Valley.
Google is also known to be working on a driverless car, which makes them Uber’s competitor, even though Google invested $258 million in Uber in August 2013. Car makers, e.g. Mercedes, Tesla, Audi and others said they are also developing driverless cars, although it is not clear what level of progress they have reached. Making driverless cars possible can have significant implications on supply chain processes.
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Flexible OLED display is finally here
FlexEnable, a Cambridge based start-up, announced it has made a breakthrough in printable electronics. The flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays will be available for volume production by the end of 2015. The plastic electronic circuits can be printed in volume on flexible films which are as thin as 25-micron and has a 0.25mm bend radius. The list of ways the flexible screen can be applied commercially is extensive. The main challenge for FlexEnable now is to set up supply chains for materials, design and production of flexible circuits.
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Have a nice weekend!
