THE PROBLEM
The problems that have plagued exploration and production companies for decades were created by financial software. Although many of these companies have made great efforts to resolve this by developing their own custom software packages the problem still exists. The cause is a disconnected supply chain. The vendors that manage, track, inspect and move the materials don’t have the same tools created by the exploration companies. They are typically small operations managing the asset data on spreadsheets and financial packages such as Quick Books. Even if the vendor takes the approach to create a system that tracks the tubulars and equipment, they are still segmented from the greater part. It causes a breakdown in compliance tracking, availability and geographic location.
TODAY’S CLIMATE
Oil& Gas producers are faced with an even larger problem. Due to the inability to manage the integrity of the products they must use there have been a string of environmental catastrophes, loss of life and an ever increasing distrust in the exploration companies’ ability to get these issues under control. [1]Their job is not only to produce the oil and gas but to protect the environment and offer safety of the public as well. Regulatory compliance on the tools and equipment used is a major concern on a global level. Governments are mandating the energy companies comply with stringent record keeping and routinely inspecting the equipment used to maintain the operations.
The energy industry has responsibilities to track not only the shipments of pipe, equipment and tools, its integrity for the job and any documentation but also the life of the product based on its use.
Many of these tasks are the responsibility of the third party vendor who lacks the tools to manage the complicated process and effectively track the documentation for the producers.
THE TOOLS
Software Innovators have seen this problem for many years and have created software tools to resolve this, but many of these tools have also been segmented. You can have great software that tracks the type assets, geographic location and condition but after it leaves that facility where the software is used the data is somewhat lost to a paper trail. You can have great software that tracks the usage of the product but how do you know when it near its end of life after it’s sent to another facility for inspection and repair? The problem is software developers and publishers are just like everyone else, they do one thing very well. You may have 5 different software vendors that all do one thing very well but they are disconnected and bringing the data together is almost impossible. The different programs are built in different languages, have different datasets and in general can’t talk to one another.
The solution
Tying together the mill, distributor and field operations seems impossible for this industry but there is a viable solution. Data Cloud services and Big Data technology can bring these software vendors and the information they collect together in one place allowing the information to be collated in a manner that makes sense and gives the exploration companies the ability to make business decisions.
There are software vendors with expertise in Supply Chain Systems designed specifically for the Exploration and production industry (not automotive or aerospace) to track Tubular goods, equipment and tools, SCADA, RFID and Bar Codes devises that push data to the Cloud. Many have the same goal; share the data for the better of the customer and the industry as a whole- globally.
The cost for Cloud Data technology and a standardized solution is lower than; developing and maintaining a custom solution, maintaining hardware and software, backups and additional security and connecting multiple locations. The reasons to change to a standard solution using Cloud Based technology far outweigh the reasons not to.
There is a still a long way to go. Oil and Gas companies and their vendors have spent billions on custom software and financial and ERP system to manage their assets, even though vendors workers in the field are still managing them in excel spreadsheets or homegrown Access Databases.