Univar Solutions has been answering industrial chemical needs for over a century. Integrating AI to optimize applications everywhere from farms to data centers, this leading chemical distributor is preparing for its next hundred years as a global provider of digitally empowered services.
What changes have you been excited about pushing forward since joining the company last August?
I was excited about connecting with the team, our core strength, and delighting the customer every single day. We built the company off the foundation of reliability and continue to put a strong emphasis on delivery given the challenging environment faced by the chemical industry these last several years.
Data centers are a new entrance for us–we have a very significant role to play in their buildout. I am also very excited about our participation in AI. Univar has always been a technology leader in the AI distribution space. We have already been using large language models and machine learning in some of our processes. Now, we are driving agenetic and generative AI to improve all facets of the business from the commercial, productivity, and efficiency standpoints.
How are you applying AI participation toward all these objectives while keeping an edge over market disruptors in the AI space?
We are fast followers. Across the industry, you see a lot of people piloting ideas, getting AI into their ecosystems, if you will. But we have not seen material changes in the supply chain and efficiency in the chemical network yet. We started with a clean sheet of paper, asking, ‘How can we really make this work together? ’ We are going through a very deliberate process in building AI literacy–it is like going to the gym. You have to start building up that capability and that muscle.
We have generated over 338 different ideas around how to use AI differently. All of our teams have participated in this, whether working in supply chain, commercial, finance, legal, or human resources. That is what makes AI transformation so exciting–it is not just an IT project, it has to be multi-disciplinary.
How do your specialty services in chemical blending impact the sectors that you are looking at?
Custom chemical blending is a core differentiator for and we continue to see growth in that part of our business.
Our system gives us the ability to take a step out of our customers’ processes. Instead of customers having to take in big quantities of products and mix them together, we are able to use our blending tanks to deliver one product in a finished form.
Depending on specific needs, the formulation could be 80/20. It could be two products. It could be five products. It could be 10 products. But simplifying supply chains and bringing that one product to customers on a just-in-time basis creates a lot of efficiencies and value for them and for us.
With trending interest in the circular economy, do you see any particular markets or materials that hold opportunities for waste management, recovery, and optimization services?
We are piloting the recycling of solvents with one customer right now, one of our biggest product lines. Traditionally, customers have had to haul off waste in liquid form. With partner companies, we are able to bring a unit on site, filter out the waste components, and then actually return materials into their system. At that point, we have that closed loop cycle–the waste stream never leaves the site. Obviously, there is an economic benefit in charging to clean the product and selling it back to them. And customers that generate recyclable solvents hit their sustainability goals while benefitting those who can reuse a recycled solvent within their processes.
We also collect waste, bring it back, and clean it in a bigger unit on one of our sites. Depending on how dirty the waste stream gets, we can reduce waste generation fivefold, sixfold. We still have to get rid of that hard waste that gets filtered out. But instead of having 30 drums go off site, you can have five drums go off site. It is a win-win type of scenario for everybody in the process, including the environment.
Do these practices also apply to end-of-life services for data center cooling fluids as well?
A lot of the data centers initially built with water-cooled systems are switching to glycol-cooled systems. In the switchout from water to glycol, you are not going to clean that water and reuse it somewhere else. We set up the whole system to extract the water, dispose of it properly, and charge the system with a glycol-based cooling.
Glycol will last eight to nine years. Maybe you have to recharge a little bit, but it's a much more efficient process and provides better performance in system cooling. Almost all of the data centers being built today start with glycol cooling. So while we are converting water-cooled systems, we are getting new systems charged with glycol from the start.
What are your secret ingredients for organic growth in the future?
We are providing the reliability that delivers, in service, safety, and expertise. Industrial businesses have been under a lot of pressure and many people have gone to just-in-time inventory needs. Being able to fulfill promises while under more stringent requirements is increasingly critical, and the distributors able to do this make a difference.
We are enabling easier business with AI. And not just AI, but a whole digitized perspective in how we provide seamless interactions and the added value of understanding customers’ businesses well enough to help them drive up their value internally as well.
We've got the best people in the business and we touch customers locally – we are in their backyards. We are a trusted advisor that has been around for a hundred years. Having that expertise local to the customer and helping guide them on their day-to-day decisions is our secret weapon.
