1. Smarter Analytics
An oil and gas producer in Canada improves safety and reliability with insights into equipment failure and preventive maintenance
USD478,000 saved in labor costs within seven weeks by automating work orders and operational planning
80% shorter
lifecycle of facility change order records—54 days instead of 273
Business Challenge: To avoid safety hazards, regulatory violations and operational disruptions, this oil and gas producer needed to improve coordination between maintenance and operations and acquire better preventive maintenance, faster problem resolution, and the ability to track and audit safety incidents with greater ease.
The Smarter Solution: The oil and gas producer keeps facilities running safely and reliably with an integrated asset and operation management solution. With an automated workflow for all maintenance activity, the company can track assets and incidents, analyze equipment failures and identify safety risks. This visibility helps the company predict why equipment fails and when it is likely to fail, which allows technicians to resolve problems faster and supports smarter, more efficient preventive maintenance programs.
By analyzing patterns in maintenance data, the company can foresee equipment failures and run a more effective preventive maintenance program.
>100% increase
in the number of records entered—from 82 to 188
Link to Reference Profile:
About the Client
This company is one of the largest independent crude oil and natural gas producers in the world. The petroleum company operates in North America, the North Sea and offshore Africa, producing a mix of natural gas, light oil, heavy oil, in situ oil sands and light synthetic upgraded oil sands. Founded in 1973, the company has nearly 6,000 employees and earned CAD billion in 2012.
Business Challenge
Across its many facilities, the company must keep equipment running smoothly to avoid safety hazards, regulatory violations and operational disruptions. To do so more efficiently, the company needed better coordination between maintenance and operations, with more effective preventive maintenance, faster problem resolution, and the ability to track and audit safety incidents.
Solution
The oil and gas producer uses an integrated asset and operation management solution to keep equipment running safely and reliably. Delivered by IBM Premier Business Partner BPD Zenith Ltd., the solution bridges the gap between maintenance and operations teams, making it easier to schedule maintenance activities and plan for operational downtime while maintaining target production levels. With automated workflow for incidents, change requests, regulatory requirements and scheduled maintenance, the company can track the entire asset lifecycle within the context of overall operations, analyzing equipment failures and safety risks. This visibility helps the company understand why equipment fails and when it is likely to fail, which allows technicians to resolve problems faster.
Quantifiable Benefits
The solution helped the company save USD478,000 in labor costs in the first seven weeks by automating work orders, operational planning and scheduling. It shortened the facility change record lifecycle by 80 percent with automated workflow—from 273 to 54 days. Plus, the ease of use encouraged technicians to start keeping better records, which more than doubled the number of facility change records, from 82 to 188—a more than 100 percent improvement.
What Makes It Smarter
Instrumented - The solution automatically tracks maintenance and inspection history, creating work orders for corrective, emergency and preventive activities. In a future phase of the project, the solution will collect data from equipment sensors and generate malfunction alerts.
Interconnected - By providing a single platform for the management of assets, maintenance and operations, the solution helps the company facilitate greater collaboration, automate workflow and streamline processes across departments for more efficient, productive oil facilities.
Intelligent - The solution accumulates data throughout the lifecycles of all incidents and change requests, allowing the company to analyze equipment failures and safety risks. This visibility helps the company uncover patterns in the data, making it easier to identify root causes and develop effective preventive maintenance plans.
Solution Components
IBM® Maximo® Asset Management
IBM Maximo for Oil and Gas
IBM Premier Business Partner BPD Zenith Ltd.