Managing assets is crucial for any business, especially for Oil Field service companies which are asset intensive where operational cost in asset management contributes to a substantial part of expenses. Even a 6-8 % saving on operational cost can make lot of difference.
Continue reading "Use Oracle EAM effectively, turn Assets to Cash!" »
During tough economic times, even the mightiest of them fall and especially in oil and gas industry we have seen that happening when crude plummeted to $32 after hitting a record of $147 a barrel at a point of time
Continue reading "When the going gets tough, the smooth gets going!" »
Technology innovations, deregulations, merger and acquisitions, low capex and maximizing operational efficiencies have made Communication Service Providers (CSP) think and evaluate about outsourcing. A key trend in outsourcing is managed services model.
Continue reading "Flexible,Scalable Billing Platforms for Telecom" »
There have been astounding changes and developments during the evolution of the staffing agency in its 50-plus years of existence. The staffing industry has evolved from its early years where temporaries were provided in emergency situations to replace absent workers to become strategic partners for its clients by providing wide range of employment services and solutions.
Continue reading "Needs & Opportunities - Staffing Industry" »
Oil Exploration and Production is a complex process, and each step of the oil supply chain involves specialized technology. Oilfield services companies provide the infrastructure, equipment, intellectual property and services needed by the international oil and gas industry to explore for, extract, and transport crude oil and natural gas from the earth to the refinery, and eventually to the consumer.
Continue reading "Small & Medium Oil Field Services Companies – Market Dynamics and Challenges" »
In today’s competitive environment the unit prices for electricity and gas is driven heavily by the competition between energy companies.However, to ensure that the customer receives a fair price and to avoid monopoly, it is quite common to have this price overseen by regulation. Though there are many pricing models available in different countries, by and large the pricing models in regulated scenarios are either revenue based pricing or rate based pricing. This blog briefly touches upon the pricing models and the components of prices. Pl. note that the examples in this blog focuses on UK energy market.
Continue reading "Regulated Energy and Utility Market Challenges – Pricing" »
Vertically integrated utilities have large assets in form of their generation stations and their components. This part of the business is regulated in some countries. Through the regulatory environment, the government gets involved in various aspects of utilities viz., pricing, Secured energy supply, Pressure to reduce carbon footprint etc.,. Equally there are some accounting challenges that are posed through regulations and reporting norms. This blog talks about one such challenge faced by generators on the way in which they manage and report their generation Assets and their significant components.
Continue reading "EAM Implementations in view of changing Generation portfolio" »
Continue reading "Changing face of EAM in a competitive 'Carbon emission control' environment" »
EAM system has a broader impact apart from its core function of work scheduling and asset management, which includes financial, inventory and workforce management. Since these functions are also covered by ERP applications, there are inefficiencies when EAM and ERP are operated as standalone systems without the ability to share information.
1. How to overcome these efficiencies and what’s the best way to leverage niche functionalities offered by ERP package & EAM packages?
2. What are the options of integrating best of breed ERP application which manages supply chain, human resources, and financials with work asset management functions of EAM based on the merit of the package?
In my opinion to answer the above question we need to understand why EAM applications are of strategic importance to Power Generation utility companies even though they already have an ERP system to manage their back office functions.
Continue reading "Integrating EAM applications with ERP applications - The need for it" »
In my earlier blogs, I had briefly touched upon how a project centric approach will facilitate utilities achieving process efficiencies by integrating its various business functions. We had also seen how Oracle out of the box capabilities can be leveraged. Whilst the oracle based project centric solution enables utilities, there are some industry wide challenges that cannot be addressed through any system or solution. Based on our experience the following are the few industry challenges that need to be considered while implementing any transformational solution to such project organisations.
Continue reading "Large Projects challenges - Beyond applications" »
In continuation with the entry here
Standardised project management process
Utilities have a trend of growing through acquiring other companies and hence the project management processes are likely to vary within their business. For e.g., an organisation that took over a contracting company that specialises in executing rechargeable jobs is likely to have its processes and systems for managing rechargeable jobs different form the rest of the business - unless there is a conscious effort to homogenize the processes. The project centric solution design addresses this by mapping the processes to the job classification available out of the box in Oracle ie., direct and indirect jobs Also project management templates can be defined to ensure that the projects are defined in a specific way that is aligned with other projects in the organisation. This substantially reduces the time required by the engineers and/or planners to create projects in Oracle. In some cases (Large capital projects), the project are likely to be created in best of breed project management software like Primavera or MS Projects etc.,. The out of the box interface available in Oracle eBusiness suite can be used to reduce the need to duplicate effort in entering project data into Oracle. With this, the process, the resource assignment and budgeting are the only processes that need to be done in Oracle eBusiness suite, whilst the other core project management processes are managed in the actual Project management suite.
Continue reading "Providing visibility to your large projects through a Project centric solution" »
‘What is the project budget?’, ‘Who approved this capital investment?’, ‘who is monitoring the budget overruns?’, ‘who is tracking the project performance in terms of cost, quality, time and effort?’ and finally ‘Where are we in terms of planned Vs Actuals?’ – These are common questions one will come across, if they have spent some time in utility industries. Utility industry is one of the very few industries that manage their operations as projects. Everything they do is managed in their systems as an outcome of a project or a group of projects. Given this challenge, what does one need to manage these projects? Will there be the organization’s ace project manager available to manage all your projects efficiently? – Probably not. !
Continue reading "Managing large projects - Do you need a piece of paper or an integrated system?" »
Across Industries, specifically utilities and process industries, because of their capital intensive environments, typically spend a substantial amount on indirect procurement, especially services. Typically services account for more than 60% of the indirect spend for companies in these industries yet this area has remained unexplored for either automation or transformation efforts.
The Services Supply Chain comprises of unique and complex activities. This is then the reason why streamlining the process coupled with adequate systems support can lead to a large savings in this area. But how do we really go about it? Our experience tells us that this is definitely possible and is a huge opportunity for savings. Oracle Advanced Procurement Suite with its Services Procurement processes help organizations in streamlining processes in achieving these savings.
Continue reading "Managing Indirect Spend? Slash costs and Save upto 20% of indirect cost" »
Today, ERP is used more to drive business improvements & operational efficiencies and hence, any delays or budget over-runs could impact the business. However, most independent surveys and studies indicate that about 55 percent of ERP Implementation projects incur budget overruns. According to Standish Group, a research firm, the average IT project runs over budget by about 43 percent. Among the litany of reasons quoted (such as excessive focus on technology at the expense of business processes, communication shortfalls, project management and operational issues) estimation & bad planning rank high in the list.
Continue reading "Improving Package Implementations Estimates using Package Points" »
Continue reading "Thinking of R12? Go for an Enhanced Upgrade" »
R12 is a milestone in Journey to Fusion
Oracle’s E-Business Suite Release 12 is Oracle’s latest version of their business applications with an upgrade path to Oracle Fusion Application. The technology stack is upgraded to Fusion Middleware, the backbone of Fusion Applications.
Continue reading "Upgrading to Oracle R12? Keep Fusion in mind" »
The last month and a half has been exciting! The ardent cricket fan in me has been treated to some rapid fire cricket through the Indian Premier League 20:20 extravaganza. Round about the same time, my project team also started rapid application development using SCRUM, a methodology I would call the 20:20 version of the waterfall model of software development. Interestingly, the word SCRUM also has its origins from the sport of rugby where a “scrum” is a group of people responsible for picking up the ball and moving it forward.
Continue reading "SCRUM Methodology: Does the Twenty-Twenty Version of the Waterfall Model Work?" »
