Slumping oil prices and increasingly difficult-to-extract oil pose a major challenge to companies in the oil and gas industry. At Kuwait Oil Company, one way that we’re pursuing cost optimization is by embracing intelligent, Internet of Things (IoT)-based enterprise asset management (EAM) technology–not just for oil extraction and drilling, but in all our operations.

Connecting everything with IBM Maximo

Kuwait Oil Company has been using IBM Maximo since 2010. We initially chose it because of its ability to monitor and automate a large number of our internal business processes. Critically, we adopted Maximo because our entire asset lifecycle can be maintained through a single system, which can then integrate and exchange information with other operations and applications.

I’m not sure that most people know that Kuwait Oil has its own township. We have staff accommodation and offices, and we maintain those facilities with Maximo. We also use IBM Control Desk for our IT assets, including PCs, network equipment, telephone exchanges and other equipment. Additionally, we have a hospital that serves our staff and employees and others in the oil industry. We’ve integrated the hospital into the Maximo system. For example, we use Maximo for medication procurement and to manage and maintain our biomedical equipment.

We recently extended Maximo for marine operations, to maintain the tugboats, the crew boats and our marine-related equipment. We also use it to maintain the dry-dock facilities where we refit and repair boats. All of these operations, plus our field equipment and oil-processing facilities are maintained with Maximo. I can say that almost everything at Kuwait Oil Company is connected through Maximo!

Creating an agile enterprise

We’ve configured Maximo to integrate and exchange information with other applications to provide a holistic view of information not only across our agile enterprise, but also business partners outside the company. We do this through automated workflows. All communication and business transactions are handled through an outside portal, integrated with Maximo, to provide detailed information and online access to business partners and company personnel alike.

Explore IBM solutions for Oil & Gas

Using Maximo has helped Kuwait Oil Company improve our business processes through automating workflows and improving communications. It has become a critical part of our cost optimization strategy and, most importantly, it continues to help us achieve our strategic objectives. Specifically, by increasing productivity and reducing costs, we’ve also been able to free up more resources for the business at hand – oil exploration and drilling.

See how Kuwait Oil Company is using IBM Maximo software to optimize costs and improve businesses processes by watching the video interview with Asim Hussain: