The right combination

O&G. Why is it essential that oil and gas companies are able to achieve total integration of their information and applications?

JHS. The market is getting more and more competitive and a lot of investment has been made in specific business areas and applications. To be competitive you have to have these applications and you must ensure that they work together in a collaborative fashion. Oil and gas companies work on a global stage and over the past 10 years we have seen an increasing emphasis on improving supply chain operations. These initiatives place refining at the centre of business operations and the need to integrate with supply, trading and product delivery is paramount for overall asset maximisation. This has further emphasised the need for co-ordination of information and applications across the organisation.

O&G. What are some of the biggest challenges organizations face when they decide to undertake an information integration project? What are the key pieces of technology to help them get over this?

JHS. There are many challenges that management faces in deciding to undertake an information integration project. The most fundamental and the biggest challenge is for the company to communicate its vision for the future, and to decide on the stages and boundaries of the integration initiative. Another big challenge is to ensure at the start that all business processes involved are well defined and understood across the different business functions.

Obviously the overall outcome of a successful integration is when you are able to make the whole system more automatic and more transparent. This enables and empowers people because they have much more time to actually make decisions and work with the information rather than spending time gathering and preparing information.

O&G. What factors should companies take into account before deciding on a solution and embarking on an integration project? What are the key features that they should look for from a vendor such as yourself?

JHS. Companies should take a close look at the capabilities and competencies of key business processes in their organization before embarking on an integration project. Companies should also review existing data quality, consistency, gaps, and most important where and when data is needed and for what purpose before embarking on integration. Current in-house IT initiatives and project timelines also need to be carefully assessed. The integration project will complement and facilitate these efforts. Also, a very important factor in deciding on a solution is to determine the extent of integration required between plant and enterprise applications.

One of the most critical aspects to consider and evaluate is whether or not the vendor has a track record of successfully completing projects and that the vendor has sound references in the industry. This is very important because there are a lot of products on the market, but the process industries, and in particular refining, are special with particular inventory management and supply chain characteristics. These need to be carefully considered and allowances made in order to cope with the complexity and the specific demands of the industry.

O&G. One of the other things you mentioned earlier was the need to future proof the technologies to ensure the company’s integration strategy can actually fit? How do you ensure your solution is future proofed in this way?

JHS. Keeping on top of technology development is one of the key methodologies of our company approach. We are acting as a bridge between the latest developments in software technology and software products and linking this in practical, robust ways, into the business and the business applications. By doing this we are reviewing all the hype, selecting the cream and implementing this in our offerings as we migrate our products from version to version.

With this we definitely rely on partners. For the database side and data storage we work closely with Oracle and we are continuously looking at Oracle’s products. Oracle has a good track record of downward compatibility and a sound upgrade and release process. For the desktop side we are strongly following Microsoft’s developments and so far over the past 15 years this has proven to be a good strategy and a sound basis to stay future-proof.

O&G. What opportunities do you see in the oil and gas sector for these type of solutions in the next five years? Are there any particular industry developments or trends that you are getting excited by and you think will really shape this market?

JHS. From a technology point of view I think we have a strong hope for the .NET 3.0 from Microsoft. I think it looks very promising. This is the third generation of this development and it will definitely help in standardization and also in the delivery of desktop and web solutions. We will incorporate this type of technology and benefit from it.

With regards to the solutions that we are offering, I believe we are just at the beginning. Only the leading companies in the industry are using tools like ours. From this perspective, we see a bright future for our products and services.