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Why Inventory Accuracy Matters. An Examination of How RFID Technology Improves the Management of Spare Parts Inventory The Business Problem In this article, we examine how RFID technology is a solution that has revolutionized the spare parts logistics market by eliminating or reducing the need for cumbersome manual inventory tracking processes. The latter is characterized…

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Digital Twins in Action; An Analysis of Predictive Maintenance Introduction: Thanks to precise, granular sensor data, artificial intelligence, high-performance computing platforms, and tailor-made digitalization strategies, the digital twin system is emerging as an extremely useful tool.  A practical, economical, and strategic solution helps create order for business-critical workloads. This is  particularly true in the realms of…

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You can’t have too much inventory…Ask our Maintenance staff An executive at a large energy company recently told me this when discussing inventory at their organization. This discussion was the first in an engagement to help them improve the inventory mix and outcomes across the enterprise. The director said they have differing stocking procedures for…

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How Complicated Procedures Cause Unwanted Actions and Cost You Money How much? Over $300,000 just hidden under those deck plates? Why? WT*? Not long ago, on a visit to a rig as part of a global inventory assessment and strategy engagement for an international drilling contractor, I discovered a gold mine. During a tour through the inventory…

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Inventory Criticality? “It was early Saturday morning, when Joe got the call from the rig telling him the upper annular had failed a pressure test and that they would need to disassemble it to see what the problem was.  Joe called his boss Tom, the Rig Manager and explained the current status was and then…

Continue Reading Inventory Criticality – What Are Your Critical Spares?

I Was in the Dark Remember the adage, “If everyone is responsible, then no one is responsible.”  I spent the first six years of my career as an Army Officer in charge of soldiers and facilities that perform equipment (trucks, generators, missile launchers) repair.  I later worked in the civilian world as a robotics Project…

Continue Reading Who Drives Asset Management in Your Company and What is Asset Management?

When it comes to oil and gas, LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) is quickly drawing the attention of companies around the globe, especially for asset tracking. This technology is allowing companies to deploy their own private networks with ease. Not only does this enhance their ability to monitor their assets, but also prevent intrusion.…

Continue Reading Differences between such as LoRaWAN, RFID, or how they work together (Asset Tracking)

When you merge with or acquire a company, you are taking on an entire portfolio of assets. From real estate to equipment, proprietary knowledge to product designs, each asset needs to be identified and valued during mergers and acquisitions. This process is called Asset Verification or an Asset Walk Down. Most industrial companies make capital…

Continue Reading The Short Guide to Asset Verifications During M&A

Definition by Example Most industrial companies make capital equipment purchases on a regular basis.  Much care is taken to ensure the equipment item is fit-for-purpose, competitively priced, and properly accounted for in terms of how the budgeting for funds to purchase (and possibly finance) the equipment is managed.  But, what happens next?  Typically, the equipment…

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Since we first formed our company, we have seen many changes in terms of developing technology. Although the evolution of technology has drastically changed (and improved) a wide range of industries, the oil and gas industry has benefited immensely. By investing in digital technologies, large oil and gas companies are able to better predict potential…

Continue Reading How Can LoRaWAN Be Used to Track Assets In O&G?

One question we are asked repeatedly is when should I perform a physical inventory count also known as a stocktake. There are several circumstances that call for a physical inventory count and it is recommended that each company documents these requirements to ensure they are followed consistently. 1. When a drilling rig or plant is…

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What can strategically integrated Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) software do for your company?  Do you have physical assets, capital equipment, maintenance procedures, spare parts inventory, and equipment certifications?  How does your company manage these diverse operational areas?  If your company is like most others, there is no central repository of information, system integration, and, candidly…

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When does an asset walkdown typically take place?  One example is the acquisition of a new rig, equipment storage yard, or an industrial facility such as a refinery.  For the benefit of brevity let’s focus on rigs here.  After the deal closes what’s next from an equipment perspective?  You will want to confirm what you…

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Dirty data is a big problem—and too many companies don’t know how to handle it. According to a 2013 Gartner study, 20 percent of the information inside a database is of poor quality, and it’s costing organizations an average of more than $14 million every year. Data cleaning is a challenging issue in the following situations:…

Continue Reading The Top 10 Challenges When Cleaning and Converting Master Data

Inventory counting may not be the most exciting topic, but it is a critical one – especially in the oil and gas industry. Many companies in the space have hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of spare parts in their inventories at a given time. Yet, most of them lack the processes in place to manage physical…

Continue Reading True Costs of Physical Count Errors in the Energy Industry

I was recently a part of a Value Stream Mapping project for a company. During my discussions with process owners, one of the main complaints was time. More specifically, time to close out certain business activities. From purchase order creation, approval for expenditures, item master/material number creation through the accounts payable process users, vendors and…

Continue Reading Waiting, waiting….It’s been a week and still waiting and I am still waiting. The value of Value Stream Mapping

We’ve looked at ways to improve inventory accuracy for oil and gas projects, such as increasing transaction discipline, labeling items clearly and using the latest technology. Yet inventory control is a constant challenge. There are many parts involved, and each one is important. Tracking each part is critical to rig success. Recently, I was thinking about some…

Continue Reading Things to Consider When Conducting Year-End Physical Counts