Unilever drives efficiency in capital investment programme

Unilever and Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (NYSE:JEC) have entered a global alliance to support the delivery of Unilever’s capital investments in the future.

Unilever has over 250 manufacturing sites and is expanding aggressively, mainly in developing and emerging markets to support its ambitious growth agenda. The company expects the emerging markets to drive around 70-75% of its growth in the long term.

The Alliance will be managed out of Singapore. It will provide engineering services for Unilever’s manufacturing sites around the world. Additionally, within Unilever’s aggressive capital expansion programme, the Alliance has been forged to make improvements in project delivery, addressing all aspects of cost, speed to market, operations and sustainability.

Pier Luigi Sigismondi, Unilever’s Chief Supply Chain Officer said: “This is about reinforcing our technical management capabilities with one of the best engineering companies in the world. It is another example of Unilever building a new business model focused on long term sustainable value creation and not only in opportunistic short term cost savings. We will work as a team to ensure the sustainable growth model will benefit all, focused on our aim to Design once and Deploy everywhere.”

The Alliance will help Unilever implement operating cost reductions, drive co-innovation, and implement the harmonization and cross-category standardisation of designs. It will also be responsible for working with Unilever’s supply chain teams to support increased speed to market and develop engineering designs that reduce carbon, water and waste footprints across its manufacturing sites.

Jacobs President and CEO Craig L. Martin said, “Jacobs welcomes this challenge and appreciates Unilever’s proactive, socially responsible approach to business. We look forward to partnering with Unilever and contributing to their sustainable growth for many years to come.”

Today’s announcement follows the creation of the Unilever Engineering Services (UEnS) organisation located in Singapore. This organisation supports challenges of scale up and speedy delivery of our major capex projects around the world. Part of UEnS are the Engineering Services Hub in Mumbai and several delivery teams across the world. The Alliance team will work in a seamless way in this new global structure.