Introduction:
As they produce large amounts of natural gas and oil, energy companies typically have a lot of equipment to handle. Here’s the story of how one of our energy industry customers saved time and improved operations with GPS technology.
Challenge:
Managing such a large and diverse portfolio of assets posed several challenges for the Company, such as:
- Lack of visibility into well performance and asset health
- Inefficient data collection and analysis processes
- Manual and error-prone workflows
- High operating costs and downtime
The Company needed a solution that could help it overcome these challenges and enable it to optimize its production, enhance its asset reliability, streamline its operations, and reduce its costs.
“We have our own drilling rigs, we have our own hydraulic fracturing group, which is a little services group, flow back team, water transfer, you name it,”
Most other EMP companies need third-party groups to do all the actual extraction for them. However, this EMP energy company takes care of everything from punching a hole, pinning the ground to produce gas, and getting it in the pipeline to sell –and they do it all themselves. As you can imagine, it’s a lot to keep up with and keep track of.
“It wasn’t too terribly long ago we spent a lot of hours in a week’s time chasing down assets, trying to figure out where things were to get them in here to our shop and service equipment. Even just trying to track stuff down and figure out where it is was a pain.” Trying to get equipment from point A to point B became increasingly difficult. Left making phone sales, calling out to employees on sites, and spending a lot of hours on the road, having to drive out to sites just to see if the equipment was there. It required a lot of manual tracking –including fuel, mileage, and time.
Solution:
The company required a solution that would provide the visibility necessary to reduce the time spent searching for equipment. Following research into several GPS tracking options, they selected Hapn as their partner to provide a platform that could meet their needs. Hapn offered a suite of applications that covered various aspects of the oil and gas value chain.
Now, instead of spending 6-12+ hours a week hunting equipment, they can just check the platform in as quick as a minute and better use that time working on equipment or doing something more productive.
“My guys have gotten to where they just get on the Hapn phone app or they’ll get on the computer and be like, ‘alright, he’s still sitting here’,” explained their Service Superintendent. “It really cut back on a lot of time we really wasted just trying track stuff down all the time. Every day we’d be looking for at least one or two units. Now we don’t have to.”
“I’d say efficiency is what we gain with Hapn. It was very easy for us, which is kind of one of the things we look at every day. How do we improve our operational efficiency?” Not only does the energy company save more time when they don’t have to hunt for stuff, they also are more efficient across their operations. In fact, they recently just had a rollover vehicle that needed to be confirmed and located.
“Sure enough, I pulled up, I said ‘yes, it looks like it’s just sitting on the side of the road here and hadn’t moved in a while, so we better give somebody a call,” explained Service Superintendent. “It’s just really neat, and it sounds so simple, but just having that insight 24/7 helps us a lot.”
“As another example, I told this driver he was supposed to take a certain route and we’re looking at the map and seeing he’s taking the wrong route, which is costing us an extra 30 minutes to an hour one way. If he would have taken the route that we gave him, we could have saved that time. Those types of things really are probably what we utilize most –the visibility.”
“Having that insight and visibility has been pretty valuable. Especially the trips –being able to go back and see where everything and everyone has gone is really helpful.” Not only does this energy company get the insights and visibility they need for better operations, they also found it incredibly easy to use and get started. “If you have nothing in place, you can literally get the device in a couple of days, slap it on your asset or vehicle, and be up and running in no time. It’s quick, it’s easy. Anybody can do it. Your 90-year- old grandma can do it. Your 15-year-old kid can do it.”
