Key Takeaways
- Integrated Efficiency and Cost Reduction: Improve operations, reduce unplanned downtime, and significantly cut down maintenance expenses.
- SAP and Innovapptive’s Connected Worker Platform Integration: Offers a unified platform for managing all frontline activities across the oil and gas value chain.
- Empowered Workforce Across Levels: Key maintenance roles across the industry get actionable insights that help to make informed decisions and improve efficiency.
Introduction
The oil and gas industry in 2024 is experiencing a period of significant change. Oil and gas companies are facing a volatile market and a cost-conscious environment. The 2024 outlook highlights a divergence in market trends with U.S. oil experiencing decreasing growth and increasing price pressure while natural gas remains oversupplied. These dynamics make it necessary for oil and gas companies to make strategic investments in technology to optimize operational costs across upstream, midstream, and downstream segments.
Our analysis indicates that optimizing SAP environments can lead to substantial cost savings. The integration of SAP S/4HANA with a Connected Worker Solution offers an advantage in this respect by improving maintenance operations, reducing unplanned downtime, and lowering maintenance expenses. This integration is crucial for:
- Upstream Operations: Capturing and analyzing real-time data from drilling rigs to enable predictive maintenance, reducing Mean Time to Detection (MTTD) and Mean Time to Repair (MTTR).
- Midstream Operations: Improving monitoring and management of pipelines and storage facilities, reducing Mean Time to Acknowledge (MTTA) and ensuring rapid response to potential issues.
- Downstream Operations: Automating routine maintenance tasks and providing detailed equipment performance data to improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), thereby reducing unplanned downtime and lowering maintenance costs.
Cost Savings Through Connected Worker Integration
SAP S/4HANA integration with Connected Worker Solution can improve maintenance operations across the oil and gas sector. Real-time data from drilling rigs can be captured and analyzed in upstream activities such as exploration and production. This enables predictive maintenance and reduces Mean Time to Detection (MTTD) and Mean Time to Repair (MTTR). For midstream operations including the transportation and storage of crude oil and natural gas, automated alerts and synchronized maintenance requests help in reducing Mean Time to Acknowledge (MTTA). This ensures rapid response to potential leaks or failures. In downstream refining and distribution, automating routine maintenance tasks and providing detailed equipment performance data improves Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). This helps in reducing unplanned downtime and lowering maintenance costs.
Empowering field technicians and operators with easy-to-use mobile solutions to create, track, and update work orders directly in SAP in real-time significantly enhances productivity. This streamlined approach ensures that maintenance activities are efficiently managed and accurately recorded, boosting overall operational efficiency.
Benefits of SAP and Innovapptive Connected Worker Solution Integration
Innovapptive's Connected Worker Solution, recognized by LNS Research as the most proven connected worker platform, offers two-way integration with SAP S/4HANA that goes beyond streamlining workflows. This integration brings a range of distinctive features leading to significant cost savings and operational improvements.
Core Operational Management
- End-to-End Work Order Management: Innovapptive's solutions simplify the entire work order process from creation to execution. Technicians are equipped with an easy-to-use mobile solution for notification creation, planning, and execution of work orders with wrench time capture.
- End-to-End Operations Management: Electronic operator rounds with route optimization and automated shift handover reports enhance daily, weekly, and monthly operations, ensuring smooth transitions and efficiency.
- End-to-End Warehouse Management: Ensuring up-to-date MRO inventory is critical in the industry. Warehouse operators can execute hundreds of SAP transactions via barcode scanning using Innovapptive's solutions, saving valuable time on various inventory transactions.
Advanced and Distinguished Features
- Real-time Insights and Advanced Dashboards: Innovapptive has pre-built dashboards showing direct reflections of MTTR, MTBF, and other operational KPIs with an inbuilt AI assistant.
- Computer Vision: Technicians capture images of potentially defective equipment using the mobile app. AI-powered computer vision analyzes these images, identifying minor wear and tear for early detection and prevention of costly failures.
- Digital Inspections for Safety & Compliance: Embedded checklists, job safety analysis tools, and frequent operator rounds ensure plant compliance with safety regulations, reducing the risk of accidents and non-compliance fines.
- Shift Handovers: Robust handover processes eliminate miscommunication during shift changes, preventing costly mistakes.
- Control Centers: Back-office control centers gain live updates on work orders, spare parts movement, and key metrics (MTTR, MTBF) for taking immediate action and optimizing plant asset uptime.
- AI Assistant for Predictive Insights: An AI assistant and analytics platform offers predictive insights and real-time views of KPIs (MTTR, MTBF, OEE) to track daily. Proactive maintenance based on these insights avoids expensive reactive repairs.
- Contextual Chat: Contextual chat features with audio, video, and chat message attachments enable real-time expert insights for field workers. This reduces training time and costs. Embedded work instructions further minimize training expenses by ensuring efficient task handling.
Innovapptive's Connected Worker Solution, when integrated with SAP S/4HANA, provides a unified platform for managing all frontline activities across the oil and gas value chain. The integration ensures:
- Real-time Data Accessibility: Maintenance teams can access critical information at their fingertips that fosters quick decision-making and improves operational efficiency.
- Predictive Maintenance: Advanced analytics and AI/ML capabilities help predict potential failures, reducing MTTF and minimizing chances of operational disruptions.
- Improved Safety and Compliance: Automated workflows and real-time alerts ensure that safety protocols are strictly followed, reducing the risk of accidents and enhancing regulatory compliance.
Powering Maintenance Professionals with SAP and Connected Worker Integration
The integration empowers key maintenance roles across the oil and gas industry's upstream, midstream, and downstream segments. Here’s how:
Maintenance and Operations Managers
For maintenance and operations managers who are responsible for overseeing expenditures, monitoring maintenance activities, and managing staff across upstream drilling sites, midstream transportation networks, and downstream refineries, the integrated solution provides comprehensive data on tool and equipment performance, maintenance requests, and work status directly from the Innovapptive’s SAP dashboard. This access to real-time alerts and status updates, along with Gen-AI capabilities, helps in reducing MTTD and MTTA. Accurate maintenance histories help in equipment replacements, budgeting, and improving Planned Maintenance Percentage (PPC).
Maintenance Technicians and Field Operators
Maintenance technicians and operators in the oil and gas industry significantly benefit from increased efficiency through mobility solutions and seamless integration between SAP and the Connected Worker Solution. Operators can effortlessly perform their rounds, manage handovers digitally, and maintain audit-ready records at all times. Technicians receive real-time updates on issues raised by operators, allowing them to address problems with AI-enabled instructions and computer vision. They can then update SAP with just a few clicks from the field, dramatically enhancing productivity and technology adoption.
Maintenance Supervisors
Maintenance supervisors in the sector use the integrated system to adjust order-related budgets and ensure optimal resource utilization. Supervisors can manage inventory more effectively by accessing real-time data on spare parts and services required for preventative maintenance. Equipment histories and reports help identify needs, which helps in improving OEE through well-coordinated maintenance activities across all industry segments.
Maintenance Planners
Maintenance planners can base their schedules on equipment needs and damage statistics. This helps in more accurate demand and capacity planning, task scheduling, and order structuring. Planners can minimize disruptions to production by addressing urgent maintenance issues promptly. This further helps improve MTBF and reduce MTTR, which is important for maintaining efficiency in upstream exploration, midstream transportation, and downstream processing.
Ready for a Connected and Integrated Future?
SAP Plant Maintenance with Innovapptive's Connected Worker Solution offers oil and gas companies optimal resource utilization and improved safety and operational efficiency across segments, making it a key strategy for cost reduction and operational excellence in 2024 and beyond.
Explore how this powerful integration can transform your maintenance strategies and drive cost reductions in your operations. Contact us today to schedule a free demo!
