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Digital Transformation for Turnaround Execution Excellence

Jenna Harvey, Global Manager, Emerging Industries
May 11, 2018

Turnaround and maintenance leaders are faced with pressure to streamline operations and deliver effectively in a difficult to manage and unpredictable climate. Amid outdated technology, siloed data, and increasing regulation, there is a lack of visibility and agility needed to achieve operational excellence.

Energy Pressures

It can take years to plan and schedule a refinery turnaround. An hour or day of time lost during a shutdown costs the organization millions of dollars. With aging infrastructure, there is more planned maintenance and outages required each year, making it critical to execute effectively at all phases of a turnaround.

According to estimates from Industrial Information Resources (IIR), U.S. refiners will increase planned maintenance spend by 38.5% to $1.26 billion in 2018.

This is why leading oil and gas companies are undertaking digital initiatives, realizing the value of technology to streamline shutdown processes, empower project management, and reduce risk from project slippage.

Digital Benefits

Mckinsey research finds that the effective use of digital technologies in the oil and gas sector can reduce capital expenditures by up to 20 percent and cut operating costs by 3 to 5 percent.

The average big oil company could realize $1 billion in cost savings or production increases by deploying technologies that exist today. - McKinsey & Company

Leveraging a digital transformation platform that automates turnaround tasks and provides a central platform for project intelligence enables organizations to:

    • Reduce non-productive time by ending paper tracking

    • Increase collaboration and compliance with full audit history

    • Meet forecasts with real-time performance and task completion data

    • Integrate data and siloed systems, including SAP, Oracle Primavera, Microsoft, and asset management tools

    • Optimize resource allocation, inspections, and scheduling

    • Increase visibility into project status and completion

    • Enable work anytime, at any location with mobile accessibility

Dealing with Disruption

Digital transformation is disrupting the energy industry on all facets and delivering big change to productivity and outcomes. One of the nation's largest oil refiners delivered a turnaround application in just 6 weeks to streamline turnaround processes across 7 refineries, leading to improved efficiency, reduced risk around critical issues, and multi-million dollar cost savings.

One of the U.S.'s largest oil refiners realized multi-million dollar cost savings with one turnaround across seven refineries.

Oil and gas organizations are embracing digital technologies to transform operations, drive down costs, and unlock opportunities in the value chain. A digital platform lays the foundation to orchestrate processes, leverage RPA, and embed artificial intelligence to deliver game-changing results.

Explore how a platform that automates processes, provides collaboration, and enables mobility delivers turnaround execution excellence. Visit our resource center for energy and utilities.