Complex Field Demands Extensive Data Management

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

People in the oil and gas industry have a tough job. You work for an outfit with incredible amounts of complex documentation, both legacy and new. This data has to be controlled, managed, disseminated, secured and kept correct up to the minute. Your fellow employees need on-demand access to any and all documents from their desktop and from the field. And to spice things up, regulators, shareholders, supply chain partners, third-party clients, consumers and all sorts of groups have demands of their own. It’s an enormous job and responsibility that has to be done right. One way to do it right (well, actually three ways) is what today’s Check it Out has to offer you.

“Complex Field Demands Extensive Data Management” takes a look at what Synergis Adept EDM (engineering document management) technology means for three oil and gas companies — Sunoco Logistics, NiSource Inc.’s Columbia Pipeline Group (CPG) and Pelican Energy Consultants — and their value chain. Each had a number of pain points that Adept addressed.

But this five-page paper is more than a set of case studies. Throughout it, Todd Cummings, VP of research and development at Synergis Software, and a really knowledgeable guy I have worked with for years, was interviewed to explain how Adept fits into the oil and gas engineering environment. He expands on the issues raised by each featured company and describes how Adept addresses a concern regardless if the home environment is the oil and gas industry or some other engineering endeavor. The back and forth between commentary from Cummings and the case studies makes for a good, informative read. Sunoco Logistics is the first case study.

Sunoco Logistics transports and stores refined and crude oil pipelines. It has to produce spatially accurate electronic data on pipelines and facilities to the National Pipeline Mapping System and US Department of Transportation on demand. Sunoco Logistics implemented Adept document management as a replacement for its old system, which could not manage CAD files, complex file relationships and file versioning inherent in its dynamic engineering environment. The paper describes how one particular process that Adept can do in minutes used to take a week with the old system.

NiSource Inc.’s CPG is a natural gas transmission company. It operates approximately 15,000 miles of pipelines across 14 states. CPG adopted Adept to modernize its data and document management processes. Basically, their old system could not handle demand. You had to know where a file resided on a server then rummage through folders looking for the data you needed. You also needed the native application to open your found files.

After installing Adept, its version control capabilities led to the cleanup of thousands of duplicate files, while Adept’s web-based client enabled CPG users at a desk or in the field to find and print engineering documents, drawings, station equipment information and specifications they needed quickly.

At PEC, Adept’s file-sharing capabilities really fit its needs. Here, documents generated by the company and by third parties are controlled, checked in and out, and sent out on request and tracked. One interesting tidbit in this discussion is that many of the documents Pelican Energy manages and controls with Adept are archived files of abandoned sites.

The problems and concerns of the featured companies, although tailored to the oil and gas industry, really know no bounds across the engineering and manufacturing landscape. The highlighted capabilities of Adept — controlled and on-demand access to all kinds of engineering and office documents, file version controls, audit trails that satisfy regulators, transmitting files to stakeholders, visualization and others — are what the modern engineering outfit needs to succeed.

“Complex Field Demands Extensive Data Management” succeeds in its mission to show you how Adept can handle the pressures of document management in the oil and gas industry. By extension, it also shows you that Adept deserves your consideration when it’s time to modernize your EDM system. Hit today’s Check it Out link and download “Complex Field Demands Extensive Data Management” and see for yourself.

Thanks, Pal. – Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood

Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering

Download “Complex Field Demands Extensive Data Management” here.