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It’s difficult to discuss the energy sector within the Sultanate of Oman without mentioning Petroleum Development Oman LLC (PDO). Founded in 1937 at the direction of Sultan Said bin Taimur, the business is one of the leading oil and gas exploration and production companies in the country.
But in recent years, PDO has expanded its scope and is moving towards becoming a fully-fledged energy company, with renewables and a green agenda playing an increasingly important part.
As Oman’s national oil company, PDO also plays an important part in the country’s economic expansion and diversification, providing support in areas such as job creation and training, developing local expertise and promoting numerous social investment programs. And to enable it to manage the various assets, resources and technologies that are required for its non-hydrocarbon functions, the business contracted Carillion Alawi LLC to provide Integrated Facilities Management (IFM) across its 12 locations.
Since the start of the relationship back in 2013, the IFM team at PDO has worked tirelessly to help implement new technologies and drive new efficiencies. In early 2018, the team turned its focus to the company’s ERP platform, which was being used to manage IFM processes.
Streamlined processes
Streamlining 46 individual procurement steps into 14 automated ones saves 2300 hours annually
Digitization
Transitioning to electronic stock processes saves 70,000 sheets of paper per year
Enhanced visibility
Managing assets, facilities and related processes on a unified platform enables greater visibility
“Our existing system did not cater to the needs of our corporate real estate activities,” recalls Ibrahim Abri, Operations Delivery Team Leader for PDO Corporate Real Estate. “While it worked well for running the maintenance side of our hydrocarbon processes, it struggled with tasks more suited to a CAFM [computer-aided facilities management] system.”
He continues, adding: “There was no customer module, and it was cost prohibitive to implement one in our old system. In addition, the team was usually at the back of the queue when it came to customized reporting or system enhancements aligned to real estate management purposes. Furthermore, the limitations of the ERP system being ringfenced within a closed network made it difficult to implement a mobility solution or collaborate with supply chain partners.”
To support the desired CAFM and real estate business processes, Carillion Alawi helped PDO migrate from its previous solution to a cloud-based instance of IBM® Maximo® Application Suite in late 2018. The new platform now oversees PDO’s corrective maintenance and planned maintenance activities, and more recently, the online management of linear assets, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, mobility and the company’s customer portal. The Maximo solution also handles the related reporting for over 60,000 maintainable assets.
“It’s covering everything spread across 12 PDO sites,” explains Abri. “Hard maintenance, environmental, catering, cleaning—all the usual core facilities management functions in our locations both in the interior and on the coast.”
Alongside the migration, Carillion Alawi was also able to launch a new customer portal and corresponding Android app, backed by IBM Maximo Anywhere software, that lets users access the CAFM environment from their own devices.
With the core system launched in late 2018, PDO quickly wanted to expand the scope of the solution, making use of other already integrated modules.
“We also wanted to update stock and inventory control,” continues Abri. “Up to that point, the IFM team had largely been using manual, paper-driven processes that involved lengthy approvals—around 45 days—to procure any new spare parts. Altogether, we were using over 70,000 sheets of paper each year, which resulted in high energy and printing costs.”
To implement this next phase, PDO and Carillion Alawi engaged IBM Business Partner Praxis Solutions.
“After the initial discovery sessions, we realized that while Carillion Alawi had established a comprehensive procurement process for PDO, there were still some challenges with maintenance response times for the procurement team,” recounts Ankit Jain, Solutions Architect and Managing Partner at Praxis. “So we worked with the Carillion Alawi team to digitize the entire contracts, procurement and inventory management process, while ensuring that both Carillion Alawi and PDO had full visibility into the process steps.”
The Praxis team routed the IFM supply chain efforts through IBM Maximo Asset Management software, using the solution to oversee inventory management, replenishment and purchasing. Working with Carillion Alawi, it also established item standards for corporate real estate across PDO and developed an electronic asset catalogue for IFM needs, leading to the cleansing and cataloging of over 11,000 products.
“Now, we’re working to further enhance process visibility and extend the IBM Maximo implementation through analytics,” adds Jain. “We are deploying various KPIs, reports and dashboards, which will allow Carillion Alawi and PDO to have further, measurable insights into their process effectiveness and empower them to further tune those processes towards excellence.”
While the new Maximo solution has driven process efficiencies throughout the business, PDO’s inventory management efforts have likely recognized the greatest improvement. Over the course of 2019, the business procured approximately 192,000 items. And by automating and streamlining these processes, PDO now does not need to print a single sheet of paper to support or approve its transactions, eliminating the need for 25,579 related signatures.
“We previously went through 46 individual steps between a project request and the issue of a purchase order,” notes Abri. “Now it’s 14. We calculated that all of these new efficiencies would save us 2,300 hours over the course of a year, or about one full-time equivalent (FTE).”
At the same time, PDO’s operations team has greater visibility into its facilities management, procurement and maintenance tasks thanks to integrated performance dashboards. And with most processes routed through Maximo, integrated workflow triggers help lead to faster resolution times for issues and routine tasks.
Furthermore, the integration of Maximo with the PDO customer portal has also improved the gathering of customer satisfaction data. The system now imports customer needs and wants directly into the company’s task management system, meaning that these requests will be addressed more quickly and are less likely to be overlooked.
Finally, the new mobile integration has made CAFM tasks much easier to manage at the front end of the process. “The accessibility was really good,” adds Abri. “You don’t have to go into the office or be on site to pull up reports. You can log on from home, and as we’re facing continued COVID-19 restrictions in Oman, that’s really convenient.”
Founded in 1937, PDO (link resides outside ibm.com) is one of the largest oil and gas companies in the region, overseeing an area of 90,000 square kilometres, or approximately one-third of Oman’s geography. The business operates around 200 oil fields, 55 natural gas fields, 9,000 active wells and maintains a national workforce of more than 8,500 staff and 70,000 contractors.
About Carillion Alawi LLC
Carillion Alawi (link resides outside ibm.com) provides construction and integrated facilities management solutions to a wide range of customers. The business has been present in Oman for over 50 years, offering world-class property information systems that add value to corporate real estate management.
About Praxis Solutions
IBM Business Partner Praxis (link resides outside ibm.com) offers IT solutions and consultancy services focused on enterprise asset management and mobility. The business is headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and maintains additional sites in Kuwait and India.
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Produced in the United States of America, September 2021.
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