Chemical Archives - OpenText Blogs https://blogs.opentext.com/category/industries/chemical/ The Information Company Mon, 23 Jun 2025 14:32:50 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 https://blogs.opentext.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/cropped-OT-Icon-Box-150x150.png Chemical Archives - OpenText Blogs https://blogs.opentext.com/category/industries/chemical/ 32 32 How to Save $1B for Energy and Resources Corporations the OpenText Way https://blogs.opentext.com/how-to-save-1b-for-energy-and-resources-corporations-the-opentext-way/ Thu, 08 May 2025 16:38:03 +0000 https://blogs.opentext.com/?p=999308314

As someone who has spent over two decades in the energy sector before joining OpenText as an Industry Strategist, I've witnessed first hand the operational challenges faced by energy and resources corporations that have root causes stemming from inadequacies in information management.

Today, I'm excited to share how organizations across utilities, oil and gas, chemicals, metals and mining, and engineering and construction can leverage information management to achieve $1 billion in operational savings over the next decade, using the same strategies OpenText employs.

Our approach combines innovative technology solutions with operational excellence to transform IT cost structures while enhancing productivity and elevating human potential across the enterprise.

The Unique Challenges Facing Energy and Resources Organizations

Energy and resources companies operate in an environment of volatile commodity prices, stringent regulatory requirements, complex asset management needs, and increasing pressure to improve safety while maintaining profitability. Many organizations in this sector struggle with:

  1. Aging infrastructure requiring significant maintenance resources
  2. Siloed data systems
  3. Complex document management requirements for regulatory compliance
  4. Complex supply chains and B2B ecosystems that play a key role in keeping assets running for longer
  5. High costs and safety risks associated with field and facility operations
  6. Increasing cybersecurity threats to critical infrastructure

These challenges create significant operational inefficiencies that directly impact the bottom line.

At OpenText, we've developed a blueprint for using our own portfolio of information management solutions to transform operations, optimize systems, and simplify complexity. 

This blueprint can be used by organizations across the energy and resources sector to unlock measurable value – like $1 billion in savings over the next 10 years and perhaps even more.

The Five Pillars of $1 Billion in Savings

OpenText recently announced an ambitious initiative to achieve $1 billion in operational savings over the next decade by leveraging our own software solutions. This strategy is built around five key areas that are particularly relevant to energy and resources corporations:

Data Center Consolidation and Cloud Optimization

For energy companies managing operations across multiple locations, consolidating data centers and optimizing cloud environments can yield approximately 15% of total savings. This represents about $160M in savings in our plan to reach $1B in savings. By migrating from fragmented, on-premises systems to unified cloud platforms, companies can reduce infrastructure costs while improving data accessibility and security for both office and field personnel.

Systems and Tools Rationalization

Many energy corporations operate with dozens of disconnected systems accumulated through years of operations and acquisitions. CIOs are prioritizing consolidation by rationalizing these systems – which represents the largest savings opportunity at 35% of potential cost reduction. This amounts to about $375 million in savings for OpenText and likely even more for many companies across the energy and resources sector.

Companies can eliminate redundancies and create a unified operational view that supports better decision-making across the entire asset lifecycle and supporting business functions.

Process Improvement, Automation and AI

Asset intensive operations involve thousands of repetitive processes that are ideal candidates for automation.  Our belief is that with cloud, security, and AI anything that moves, including information, can now be autonomous. By implementing intelligent process automation and AI-driven workflows, companies can achieve approximately 15% of their total savings. While freeing highly skilled workers to focus on safety and value-added activities instead of routine, and error prone tasks.

Employee Productivity and Efficiency Improvements

Facility operations across the energy and resources sector often suffer from information delays and communication challenges. Digital solutions that connect field and facility workers with real-time information and collaboration tools can drive approximately 25% of potential savings through improved workforce productivity and reduced downtime.

Cost Avoidance Through Proactive Management

Proactive management of assets and operations can help energy companies avoid approximately 10% of costs. By implementing predictive maintenance and other information management solutions, organizations can prevent costly equipment failures, operational disruptions, and safety incidents before they occur. Just as all safety accidents are preventable, so are other business challenges using information management best practices and technologies.

The Path Forward

By following OpenText's blueprint for saving $1 billion in cost savings, companies across the entire energy and resources sector can achieve similar transformative savings while positioning themselves for sustainable growth into the future.

To learn more about how your organization can leverage OpenText solutions to achieve substantial operational savings, visit How to save $1 billion the OpenText Way and sign up for a Professional Services Workshop.

How can OpenText work with you?

Learn more about OpenText solutions for Utilities, ChemicalsOil and GasMetals and Mining and Engineering, Procurement and Construction that can help you work smarter in 2025 and beyond.

The post How to Save $1B for Energy and Resources Corporations the OpenText Way appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

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As someone who has spent over two decades in the energy sector before joining OpenText as an Industry Strategist, I've witnessed first hand the operational challenges faced by energy and resources corporations that have root causes stemming from inadequacies in information management.

Today, I'm excited to share how organizations across utilities, oil and gas, chemicals, metals and mining, and engineering and construction can leverage information management to achieve $1 billion in operational savings over the next decade, using the same strategies OpenText employs.

Our approach combines innovative technology solutions with operational excellence to transform IT cost structures while enhancing productivity and elevating human potential across the enterprise.

The Unique Challenges Facing Energy and Resources Organizations

Energy and resources companies operate in an environment of volatile commodity prices, stringent regulatory requirements, complex asset management needs, and increasing pressure to improve safety while maintaining profitability. Many organizations in this sector struggle with:

  1. Aging infrastructure requiring significant maintenance resources
  2. Siloed data systems
  3. Complex document management requirements for regulatory compliance
  4. Complex supply chains and B2B ecosystems that play a key role in keeping assets running for longer
  5. High costs and safety risks associated with field and facility operations
  6. Increasing cybersecurity threats to critical infrastructure

These challenges create significant operational inefficiencies that directly impact the bottom line.

At OpenText, we've developed a blueprint for using our own portfolio of information management solutions to transform operations, optimize systems, and simplify complexity. 

This blueprint can be used by organizations across the energy and resources sector to unlock measurable value – like $1 billion in savings over the next 10 years and perhaps even more.

The Five Pillars of $1 Billion in Savings

OpenText recently announced an ambitious initiative to achieve $1 billion in operational savings over the next decade by leveraging our own software solutions. This strategy is built around five key areas that are particularly relevant to energy and resources corporations:

Data Center Consolidation and Cloud Optimization

For energy companies managing operations across multiple locations, consolidating data centers and optimizing cloud environments can yield approximately 15% of total savings. This represents about $160M in savings in our plan to reach $1B in savings. By migrating from fragmented, on-premises systems to unified cloud platforms, companies can reduce infrastructure costs while improving data accessibility and security for both office and field personnel.

Systems and Tools Rationalization

Many energy corporations operate with dozens of disconnected systems accumulated through years of operations and acquisitions. CIOs are prioritizing consolidation by rationalizing these systems – which represents the largest savings opportunity at 35% of potential cost reduction. This amounts to about $375 million in savings for OpenText and likely even more for many companies across the energy and resources sector.

Companies can eliminate redundancies and create a unified operational view that supports better decision-making across the entire asset lifecycle and supporting business functions.

Process Improvement, Automation and AI

Asset intensive operations involve thousands of repetitive processes that are ideal candidates for automation.  Our belief is that with cloud, security, and AI anything that moves, including information, can now be autonomous. By implementing intelligent process automation and AI-driven workflows, companies can achieve approximately 15% of their total savings. While freeing highly skilled workers to focus on safety and value-added activities instead of routine, and error prone tasks.

Employee Productivity and Efficiency Improvements

Facility operations across the energy and resources sector often suffer from information delays and communication challenges. Digital solutions that connect field and facility workers with real-time information and collaboration tools can drive approximately 25% of potential savings through improved workforce productivity and reduced downtime.

Cost Avoidance Through Proactive Management

Proactive management of assets and operations can help energy companies avoid approximately 10% of costs. By implementing predictive maintenance and other information management solutions, organizations can prevent costly equipment failures, operational disruptions, and safety incidents before they occur. Just as all safety accidents are preventable, so are other business challenges using information management best practices and technologies.

The Path Forward

By following OpenText's blueprint for saving $1 billion in cost savings, companies across the entire energy and resources sector can achieve similar transformative savings while positioning themselves for sustainable growth into the future.

To learn more about how your organization can leverage OpenText solutions to achieve substantial operational savings, visit How to save $1 billion the OpenText Way and sign up for a Professional Services Workshop.

How can OpenText work with you?

Learn more about OpenText solutions for Utilities, ChemicalsOil and GasMetals and Mining and Engineering, Procurement and Construction that can help you work smarter in 2025 and beyond.

The post How to Save $1B for Energy and Resources Corporations the OpenText Way appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

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The ScottsMiracle-Gro Company realizes cost savings by switching to SaaS https://blogs.opentext.com/the-scottsmiracle-gro-company-realizes-cost-savings-by-switching-to-saas/ Tue, 25 Mar 2025 16:30:53 +0000 https://blogs.opentext.com/?p=999307277 The ScottsMiracle-Gro Company

With approximately $3.6 billion in sales, ScottsMiracle-Gro is the world’s largest marketer of branded consumer products for lawn and garden care. The company’s brands are among the most recognized in the industry. Scotts®, Miracle-Gro® and Ortho® brands are market-leading in their categories. The company’s wholly owned subsidiary, The Hawthorne Gardening Company, is a leading provider of nutrients, lighting, and other materials used in the indoor and hydroponic growing segment. 

Over time, we had built a complex web of application integrations and had gradually acquired seven different content management solutions—some of which were no longer supported. Though functional, we were without a unified platform for records, compliance, capture and workflow; plus, our administration efforts and operating expenses were rising. With the imminent prospect of migrating to SAP S/4HANA, we needed to find a way to streamline operations, improve enterprise workflow and cut costs. 

Designing a future-ready approach

Our first step was to ask our business partner and systems integrator, 4Matrix, to research and propose solutions. The selection criteria included alignment with our strategy to shift to cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions whenever possible, cost reduction, and meeting our timelines to be ready for the SAP S/4HANA transformation.  

From a business perspective, we wanted to boost user productivity by reducing the time people spent hunting for information while providing a 360-degree view of content in a single interface. Additionally, a unified management solution would improve our information governance, particularly for corporate records. At the time we were spending north of half a million dollars a year on the existing apps, which gave us a clear cost-saving target. 

Planting the seeds for tomorrow

OpenText™ Core Content Management aligned with our criteria and offered a rapid purchase and roll-out timeline. The sooner we could eliminate legacy applications and embed a streamlined solution, the better. 

In just eight weeks, OpenText™ Professional Services completed the implementation, migrated the existing content and archives, and enabled single-sign-on capabilities (our previous systems required multiple sign-ons). We also deployed OpenText™ Core Capture for intelligent document processing, which ingests documents and uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate file classification and data extraction, all of which reduces the internal friction of document management. 

Enabling digital transformation

With the upcoming SAP S/4HANA transformation in mind, we also deployed OpenText™ Archiving and Document Access for SAP. This solution supports all SAP interfaces and archiving models for SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA, which puts us in exactly the right place for our future plans. 

Because we did not have the in-house expertise to migrate to OpenText Core Content Management, we relied on the responsiveness of OpenText and their team.  As soon as we were ready, we retired the seven previous applications—delivering immediate and significant savings. 

Preparing for the AI revolution

Overall, the transition has been a success. On the SAP side, we have completed our consolidation program, and with OpenText Core Content Management and OpenText Core Capture, we have streamlined and strengthened our approach to document management. Eliminating unsupported apps has also enhanced our security, reduced our workload, and cut our costs. 

At the practical level, we have restructured our processes and extracted and added metadata to thousands of documents to make them searchable—features that the business units, particularly legal, value greatly. Now that we have shown quick wins, more departments want to come on board, and we’re already looking at other business units where OpenText Core Content Management can add value. 

We know the future will include more automation and machine learning. With OpenText Core Content Management and OpenText Core Capture, ScottsMiracle-Gro will be able to use AI to summarize documents, collate reports, and extract data, enabling our people to spend more time on innovation. 

The post The ScottsMiracle-Gro Company realizes cost savings by switching to SaaS appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

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The ScottsMiracle-Gro Company

With approximately $3.6 billion in sales, ScottsMiracle-Gro is the world’s largest marketer of branded consumer products for lawn and garden care. The company’s brands are among the most recognized in the industry. Scotts®, Miracle-Gro® and Ortho® brands are market-leading in their categories. The company’s wholly owned subsidiary, The Hawthorne Gardening Company, is a leading provider of nutrients, lighting, and other materials used in the indoor and hydroponic growing segment. 

Over time, we had built a complex web of application integrations and had gradually acquired seven different content management solutions—some of which were no longer supported. Though functional, we were without a unified platform for records, compliance, capture and workflow; plus, our administration efforts and operating expenses were rising. With the imminent prospect of migrating to SAP S/4HANA, we needed to find a way to streamline operations, improve enterprise workflow and cut costs. 

Designing a future-ready approach

Our first step was to ask our business partner and systems integrator, 4Matrix, to research and propose solutions. The selection criteria included alignment with our strategy to shift to cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions whenever possible, cost reduction, and meeting our timelines to be ready for the SAP S/4HANA transformation.  

From a business perspective, we wanted to boost user productivity by reducing the time people spent hunting for information while providing a 360-degree view of content in a single interface. Additionally, a unified management solution would improve our information governance, particularly for corporate records. At the time we were spending north of half a million dollars a year on the existing apps, which gave us a clear cost-saving target. 

Planting the seeds for tomorrow

OpenText™ Core Content Management aligned with our criteria and offered a rapid purchase and roll-out timeline. The sooner we could eliminate legacy applications and embed a streamlined solution, the better. 

In just eight weeks, OpenText™ Professional Services completed the implementation, migrated the existing content and archives, and enabled single-sign-on capabilities (our previous systems required multiple sign-ons). We also deployed OpenText™ Core Capture for intelligent document processing, which ingests documents and uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate file classification and data extraction, all of which reduces the internal friction of document management. 

Enabling digital transformation

With the upcoming SAP S/4HANA transformation in mind, we also deployed OpenText™ Archiving and Document Access for SAP. This solution supports all SAP interfaces and archiving models for SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA, which puts us in exactly the right place for our future plans. 

Because we did not have the in-house expertise to migrate to OpenText Core Content Management, we relied on the responsiveness of OpenText and their team.  As soon as we were ready, we retired the seven previous applications—delivering immediate and significant savings. 

Preparing for the AI revolution

Overall, the transition has been a success. On the SAP side, we have completed our consolidation program, and with OpenText Core Content Management and OpenText Core Capture, we have streamlined and strengthened our approach to document management. Eliminating unsupported apps has also enhanced our security, reduced our workload, and cut our costs. 

At the practical level, we have restructured our processes and extracted and added metadata to thousands of documents to make them searchable—features that the business units, particularly legal, value greatly. Now that we have shown quick wins, more departments want to come on board, and we’re already looking at other business units where OpenText Core Content Management can add value. 

We know the future will include more automation and machine learning. With OpenText Core Content Management and OpenText Core Capture, ScottsMiracle-Gro will be able to use AI to summarize documents, collate reports, and extract data, enabling our people to spend more time on innovation. 

The post The ScottsMiracle-Gro Company realizes cost savings by switching to SaaS appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

]]>
Elevating human potential in 2025 and beyond https://blogs.opentext.com/elevating-human-potential-in-2025-and-beyond/ Thu, 09 Jan 2025 12:59:14 +0000 https://blogs.opentext.com/?p=999306470

Happy New Year from Alaska! 2025 couldn’t have started in a more beautiful fashion as I gazed upon the northern lights in the early morning hours on January 1st and inspired this blog. This display of red lights is very uncommon in the northern hemisphere and made this light show more spectacular than the typical ‘dance’ of green lights across the sky.

Just as the northern lights paint the sky with their exquisite dance, information, when managed effectively, can light up human potential and lead us to new horizons of achievement and innovation.

Nature’s blueprint:  Ingenious inventions that represent the wild

There are countless examples of how human innovation represent nature. The airplane’s design represents the flight of birds, harnessing the principles of lift, thrust, and aerodynamics. The concept of the umbrella finds its roots in the shape of trees, translating this natural canopy into a portable form for human use. Artificial intelligence simulates the human mind by simulating cognitive abilities like learning, reasoning, problems-solving, and decision-making. Information management is no different and as is analogous to the northern lights, or aurora borealis.

An analogy between the Northern Lights and information management

The northern lights (and southern lights in the Southern Hemisphere) occur when charged particles from the sun interact with Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere, creating a breathtaking display of light. Here’s how this natural phenomenon mirrors information management software technology.

Sun burst = Corporate strategy & initiatives: The sun’s burst of energy represents a company’s annual release of corporate strategies and initiatives. This release of energy is focused in a specific direction that acts as a guide for employees and other stakeholders. 

Electrons = Employees setting out to execute the strategy: Sun bursts release an abundance of electrons that carry this energy toward earth. Just like the sun emits electrons into space, companies send their team members out into the business world to execute their roles and contribute toward the progress of its strategic initiatives.

Oxygen molecules = Structured information: Just as earth’s atmosphere is made up of about 20% oxygen, only about 20% of the information team members use is neatly organized in rows, columns, and tabs. By definition, structured data is organized. It’s also easily accessible and manageable forming the backbone of many business operations.

Nitrogen molecules = Unstructured information: Earth’s atmosphere is made up of about 80% nitrogen, and best represents the vast amount of information we use on a daily basis that doesn’t easily fit into a box and conventional databases. Examples include but not limited to documents, conversations, videos, and the hidden insights in any dataset. Just as nitrogen is often overshadowed by oxygen and the critical role it plays in earth’s ecosystem, unstructured information plays a critical role in any business process and business ecosystem.

Excited electrons = Employees + Information: When electrons reach earth’s atmosphere and collide with oxygen and nitrogen molecules the electrons reach an ‘excited state’ with a higher energy level. Likewise, as employees are equipped with trusted, autonomous, and secure information that they need to successfully execute their roles, their productive potential rises. Few things are more motivating than having the right information at the right time to successfully execute your role.

Northern lights = Progress toward strategic goals and initiatives: The excited electrons release the absorbed energy in the form of light.  It’s one of the most spectacular sights and is celebrated by viewers. Likewise, making progress toward strategic goals is also a remarkable sight and celebrated by organizations.

As we navigate through this information-rich era, the challenge and opportunity lie in harnessing this wealth of data. By utilizing information management technologies and best practices, we can ensure that every individual and organization is elevated to be their best. In essence, we’re all just a bunch of electrons. Provide your organization  with the right information at the right time and we all have a lot of light to give.

How can OpenText work with you?

Learn more about OpenText solutions for Utilities, ChemicalsOil and GasMetals and Mining and Engineering, Procurement and Construction that can help you work smarter in 2025 and beyond.

The post Elevating human potential in 2025 and beyond appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

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Happy New Year from Alaska! 2025 couldn’t have started in a more beautiful fashion as I gazed upon the northern lights in the early morning hours on January 1st and inspired this blog. This display of red lights is very uncommon in the northern hemisphere and made this light show more spectacular than the typical ‘dance’ of green lights across the sky.

Just as the northern lights paint the sky with their exquisite dance, information, when managed effectively, can light up human potential and lead us to new horizons of achievement and innovation.

Nature’s blueprint:  Ingenious inventions that represent the wild

There are countless examples of how human innovation represent nature. The airplane’s design represents the flight of birds, harnessing the principles of lift, thrust, and aerodynamics. The concept of the umbrella finds its roots in the shape of trees, translating this natural canopy into a portable form for human use. Artificial intelligence simulates the human mind by simulating cognitive abilities like learning, reasoning, problems-solving, and decision-making. Information management is no different and as is analogous to the northern lights, or aurora borealis.

An analogy between the Northern Lights and information management

The northern lights (and southern lights in the Southern Hemisphere) occur when charged particles from the sun interact with Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere, creating a breathtaking display of light. Here’s how this natural phenomenon mirrors information management software technology.

Sun burst = Corporate strategy & initiatives: The sun’s burst of energy represents a company’s annual release of corporate strategies and initiatives. This release of energy is focused in a specific direction that acts as a guide for employees and other stakeholders. 

Electrons = Employees setting out to execute the strategy: Sun bursts release an abundance of electrons that carry this energy toward earth. Just like the sun emits electrons into space, companies send their team members out into the business world to execute their roles and contribute toward the progress of its strategic initiatives.

Oxygen molecules = Structured information: Just as earth’s atmosphere is made up of about 20% oxygen, only about 20% of the information team members use is neatly organized in rows, columns, and tabs. By definition, structured data is organized. It’s also easily accessible and manageable forming the backbone of many business operations.

Nitrogen molecules = Unstructured information: Earth’s atmosphere is made up of about 80% nitrogen, and best represents the vast amount of information we use on a daily basis that doesn’t easily fit into a box and conventional databases. Examples include but not limited to documents, conversations, videos, and the hidden insights in any dataset. Just as nitrogen is often overshadowed by oxygen and the critical role it plays in earth’s ecosystem, unstructured information plays a critical role in any business process and business ecosystem.

Excited electrons = Employees + Information: When electrons reach earth’s atmosphere and collide with oxygen and nitrogen molecules the electrons reach an ‘excited state’ with a higher energy level. Likewise, as employees are equipped with trusted, autonomous, and secure information that they need to successfully execute their roles, their productive potential rises. Few things are more motivating than having the right information at the right time to successfully execute your role.

Northern lights = Progress toward strategic goals and initiatives: The excited electrons release the absorbed energy in the form of light.  It’s one of the most spectacular sights and is celebrated by viewers. Likewise, making progress toward strategic goals is also a remarkable sight and celebrated by organizations.

As we navigate through this information-rich era, the challenge and opportunity lie in harnessing this wealth of data. By utilizing information management technologies and best practices, we can ensure that every individual and organization is elevated to be their best. In essence, we’re all just a bunch of electrons. Provide your organization  with the right information at the right time and we all have a lot of light to give.

How can OpenText work with you?

Learn more about OpenText solutions for Utilities, ChemicalsOil and GasMetals and Mining and Engineering, Procurement and Construction that can help you work smarter in 2025 and beyond.

The post Elevating human potential in 2025 and beyond appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

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From breakdown to breakthrough: How predictive and prescriptive maintenance are revolutionizing operations https://blogs.opentext.com/from-breakdown-to-breakthrough-how-predictive-and-prescriptive-maintenance-are-revolutionizing-operations/ Wed, 16 Oct 2024 19:14:44 +0000 https://blogs.opentext.com/?p=999276627

Industries today are constantly battling to maintain equipment reliability, reduce maintenance costs, improve safety and prevent costly equipment downtime. Traditional maintenance strategies often rely on reactive approaches, addressing issues only after machinery breaks down. But with AI and machine learning driving the future of maintenance, businesses are shifting toward predictive maintenance and prescriptive maintenance strategies to stay ahead of failures and keep operations running smoothly. 

The Power of Predictive and Prescriptive Maintenance 

Every business knows the pain of unexpected equipment downtime—operations grind to a halt, deadlines are missed, safety incidents occur, and costs skyrocket. For industries like manufacturing, healthcare, and energy, this downtime doesn't just mean a temporary hiccup; it leads to significant financial losses, decreased productivity, and even safety risks. 

Predictive maintenance offers a solution by using AI-powered analytics and real-time data to forecast when equipment is likely to fail. By analyzing data from IoT sensors, machine performance logs, and other systems, predictive analytics provides early warnings about potential equipment breakdowns, allowing businesses to schedule repairs before failure happens. This proactive approach minimizes downtime and helps prevent disruptions. 

But it gets better with prescriptive maintenance, which goes beyond forecasting failures. Prescriptive analytics recommends the best course of action to fix the issue—whether it’s adjusting machine settings, ordering a spare part, or scheduling a technician. This ensures that every intervention is timely and efficient, cutting down on costs and maximizing machine uptime. 

Why Equipment Downtime is a Business Killer 

Let’s take a deeper look at the impact of equipment downtime. Every minute of downtime leads to direct losses in revenue and productivity, but it also results in higher maintenance costs, damaged equipment, injury risk, and delayed orders. For industries dependent on machinery to operate—whether it’s factory equipment, healthcare devices, or power plants—downtime is a direct hit to profitability. 

Reactive maintenance is often too late—when a machine breaks down, the damage is done. But with predictive maintenance, businesses can prevent those failures altogether. By leveraging AI-powered maintenance strategies, organizations can move from reacting to breakdowns to predicting and preventing them. 

A 30-50% reduction in downtimei is just the beginning. Businesses that use machine learning in maintenance are also extending the lifespan of critical assets by 20-40%ii and reducing costs by up to 40%iii. These savings add up fast, improving profitability while keeping operations running smoothly and yielding a 10x ROIiv

The Technical Challenge of Implementing Predictive and Prescriptive Maintenance 

While the benefits of predictive maintenance are clear, implementing it comes with technical challenges. Businesses are generating massive amounts of data from IoT sensors, machine logs, and real-time monitoring systems. The key challenge is integrating this data and processing it fast enough to generate useful insights. 

This is where AI-powered maintenance truly shines. With the help of predictive analytics and machine learning, companies can analyze vast streams of data in real time. The challenge, however, is ensuring that these models remain accurate and adaptive as the equipment changes over time. Continuous data integration, real-time analysis, and accurate model training are essential to the success of predictive and prescriptive maintenance systems. 

Furthermore, businesses need scalability to handle the ever-growing data from their expanding operations. Whether you're dealing with thousands of IoT sensors across multiple factories or medical devices producing millions of data points, your system needs to scale without sacrificing speed or accuracy. Finally, concerns about data security and privacy must also be addressed, particularly when dealing with sensitive operational information. 

How OpenText Analytics Cloud Solves the Problem 

This is where OpenText Analytics Cloud steps in as the perfect solution. OpenText Analytics Cloud provides a unified platform for real-time data integration and AI-powered predictive analytics that’s built for scale. Whether your business deals with millions of data points per second or needs to analyze complex machine learning models in real time, OpenText offers a solution that works. 

The in-database machine learning capabilities of OpenText Analytics Cloud allow businesses to train and update predictive models directly within the platform, eliminating the need for data transfers between systems. This speeds up processing up to 50x and ensures continuous, accurate predictions, keeping you ahead of equipment failures. 

With flexible deployment options—on-prem, cloud, or hybrid—OpenText Analytics Cloud ensures businesses can tailor the solution to their infrastructure, minimizing costs and maximizing performance. Its real-time analytics capabilities make it the ideal partner for companies looking to adopt predictive and prescriptive maintenance at scale. And with enterprise-grade security, OpenText ensures your data is protected and fully compliant with industry regulations. 

Real-World Predictive Maintenance Success Stories 

Philips Healthcare 

Philips Healthcare faced a challenge with medical equipment reliability. By implementing OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica), Philips reduced equipment downtime by 30% and increased their first-time fix rate to 84%, while identifying 20% of issues before they even affected customers. This proactive approach ensures medical professionals can rely on critical devices without the risk of unplanned downtime. 

Knorr-Bremse 

A leader in braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles, Knorr-Bremse needed real-time insights into their fleet’s performance. Using OpenText Intelligence (Magellan BI & Reporting), they reduced maintenance costs by 20% and extended the lifespan of their equipment. This allowed them to achieve a significant ROI within 2-4 years by proactively addressing maintenance issues before they escalated. 

Nimble Storage (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) 

As their customer base grew by 600%, Nimble Storage needed a scalable solution to manage the influx of data from their storage systems. By implementing OpenText, they reduced query times by 50-83%, enabling real-time system insights. They also cut support cases by 86% and saw 19% fewer customer support calls annually, greatly improving customer satisfaction. 

Unowhy 

Supporting over 500,000 devices across classrooms, Unowhy faced the challenge of maintaining seamless operations while keeping maintenance costs under control. With OpenText Analytics Cloud, they improved device reliability, reduced support costs, and shifted to a proactive maintenance model that ensured educators could focus on teaching without technical interruptions.

Why Choose OpenText for Predictive and Prescriptive Maintenance? 

OpenText offers a comprehensive, scalable, and secure solution for businesses looking to adopt AI-powered maintenance strategies. With predictive analytics and machine learning integrated directly into the platform, OpenText delivers real-time insights and prescriptive recommendations to optimize maintenance operations, reduce costs, and prevent equipment failures. 

For businesses seeking to transform their maintenance strategies from reactive to proactive, OpenText Analytics Cloud is the perfect partner. With success stories across various industries, OpenText has proven its ability to drive operational excellence, ensuring businesses stay ahead of equipment failures and maintain optimal performance. 

The Future of Maintenance is Predictive and Prescriptive 

In an increasingly data-driven world, predictive and prescriptive maintenance are no longer just options—they are essential for any business looking to improve operational efficiency, prevent equipment downtime, and cut maintenance costs. With AI-powered maintenance and real-time analytics, businesses can prevent failures, extend asset lifespans, and stay competitive in a rapidly evolving landscape. 

Choosing OpenText as your partner in predictive maintenance ensures you have the technology, scalability, and security to transform your operations and achieve long-term success. Don’t wait for your next breakdown—start predicting and preventing it today. 

The post From breakdown to breakthrough: How predictive and prescriptive maintenance are revolutionizing operations appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

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Industries today are constantly battling to maintain equipment reliability, reduce maintenance costs, improve safety and prevent costly equipment downtime. Traditional maintenance strategies often rely on reactive approaches, addressing issues only after machinery breaks down. But with AI and machine learning driving the future of maintenance, businesses are shifting toward predictive maintenance and prescriptive maintenance strategies to stay ahead of failures and keep operations running smoothly. 

The Power of Predictive and Prescriptive Maintenance 

Every business knows the pain of unexpected equipment downtime—operations grind to a halt, deadlines are missed, safety incidents occur, and costs skyrocket. For industries like manufacturing, healthcare, and energy, this downtime doesn't just mean a temporary hiccup; it leads to significant financial losses, decreased productivity, and even safety risks. 

Predictive maintenance offers a solution by using AI-powered analytics and real-time data to forecast when equipment is likely to fail. By analyzing data from IoT sensors, machine performance logs, and other systems, predictive analytics provides early warnings about potential equipment breakdowns, allowing businesses to schedule repairs before failure happens. This proactive approach minimizes downtime and helps prevent disruptions. 

But it gets better with prescriptive maintenance, which goes beyond forecasting failures. Prescriptive analytics recommends the best course of action to fix the issue—whether it’s adjusting machine settings, ordering a spare part, or scheduling a technician. This ensures that every intervention is timely and efficient, cutting down on costs and maximizing machine uptime. 

Why Equipment Downtime is a Business Killer 

Let’s take a deeper look at the impact of equipment downtime. Every minute of downtime leads to direct losses in revenue and productivity, but it also results in higher maintenance costs, damaged equipment, injury risk, and delayed orders. For industries dependent on machinery to operate—whether it’s factory equipment, healthcare devices, or power plants—downtime is a direct hit to profitability. 

Reactive maintenance is often too late—when a machine breaks down, the damage is done. But with predictive maintenance, businesses can prevent those failures altogether. By leveraging AI-powered maintenance strategies, organizations can move from reacting to breakdowns to predicting and preventing them. 

A 30-50% reduction in downtimei is just the beginning. Businesses that use machine learning in maintenance are also extending the lifespan of critical assets by 20-40%ii and reducing costs by up to 40%iii. These savings add up fast, improving profitability while keeping operations running smoothly and yielding a 10x ROIiv

The Technical Challenge of Implementing Predictive and Prescriptive Maintenance 

While the benefits of predictive maintenance are clear, implementing it comes with technical challenges. Businesses are generating massive amounts of data from IoT sensors, machine logs, and real-time monitoring systems. The key challenge is integrating this data and processing it fast enough to generate useful insights. 

This is where AI-powered maintenance truly shines. With the help of predictive analytics and machine learning, companies can analyze vast streams of data in real time. The challenge, however, is ensuring that these models remain accurate and adaptive as the equipment changes over time. Continuous data integration, real-time analysis, and accurate model training are essential to the success of predictive and prescriptive maintenance systems. 

Furthermore, businesses need scalability to handle the ever-growing data from their expanding operations. Whether you're dealing with thousands of IoT sensors across multiple factories or medical devices producing millions of data points, your system needs to scale without sacrificing speed or accuracy. Finally, concerns about data security and privacy must also be addressed, particularly when dealing with sensitive operational information. 

How OpenText Analytics Cloud Solves the Problem 

This is where OpenText Analytics Cloud steps in as the perfect solution. OpenText Analytics Cloud provides a unified platform for real-time data integration and AI-powered predictive analytics that’s built for scale. Whether your business deals with millions of data points per second or needs to analyze complex machine learning models in real time, OpenText offers a solution that works. 

The in-database machine learning capabilities of OpenText Analytics Cloud allow businesses to train and update predictive models directly within the platform, eliminating the need for data transfers between systems. This speeds up processing up to 50x and ensures continuous, accurate predictions, keeping you ahead of equipment failures. 

With flexible deployment options—on-prem, cloud, or hybrid—OpenText Analytics Cloud ensures businesses can tailor the solution to their infrastructure, minimizing costs and maximizing performance. Its real-time analytics capabilities make it the ideal partner for companies looking to adopt predictive and prescriptive maintenance at scale. And with enterprise-grade security, OpenText ensures your data is protected and fully compliant with industry regulations. 

Real-World Predictive Maintenance Success Stories 

Philips Healthcare 

Philips Healthcare faced a challenge with medical equipment reliability. By implementing OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica), Philips reduced equipment downtime by 30% and increased their first-time fix rate to 84%, while identifying 20% of issues before they even affected customers. This proactive approach ensures medical professionals can rely on critical devices without the risk of unplanned downtime. 

Knorr-Bremse 

A leader in braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles, Knorr-Bremse needed real-time insights into their fleet’s performance. Using OpenText Intelligence (Magellan BI & Reporting), they reduced maintenance costs by 20% and extended the lifespan of their equipment. This allowed them to achieve a significant ROI within 2-4 years by proactively addressing maintenance issues before they escalated. 

Nimble Storage (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) 

As their customer base grew by 600%, Nimble Storage needed a scalable solution to manage the influx of data from their storage systems. By implementing OpenText, they reduced query times by 50-83%, enabling real-time system insights. They also cut support cases by 86% and saw 19% fewer customer support calls annually, greatly improving customer satisfaction. 

Unowhy 

Supporting over 500,000 devices across classrooms, Unowhy faced the challenge of maintaining seamless operations while keeping maintenance costs under control. With OpenText Analytics Cloud, they improved device reliability, reduced support costs, and shifted to a proactive maintenance model that ensured educators could focus on teaching without technical interruptions.

Why Choose OpenText for Predictive and Prescriptive Maintenance? 

OpenText offers a comprehensive, scalable, and secure solution for businesses looking to adopt AI-powered maintenance strategies. With predictive analytics and machine learning integrated directly into the platform, OpenText delivers real-time insights and prescriptive recommendations to optimize maintenance operations, reduce costs, and prevent equipment failures. 

For businesses seeking to transform their maintenance strategies from reactive to proactive, OpenText Analytics Cloud is the perfect partner. With success stories across various industries, OpenText has proven its ability to drive operational excellence, ensuring businesses stay ahead of equipment failures and maintain optimal performance. 

The Future of Maintenance is Predictive and Prescriptive 

In an increasingly data-driven world, predictive and prescriptive maintenance are no longer just options—they are essential for any business looking to improve operational efficiency, prevent equipment downtime, and cut maintenance costs. With AI-powered maintenance and real-time analytics, businesses can prevent failures, extend asset lifespans, and stay competitive in a rapidly evolving landscape. 

Choosing OpenText as your partner in predictive maintenance ensures you have the technology, scalability, and security to transform your operations and achieve long-term success. Don’t wait for your next breakdown—start predicting and preventing it today. 

The post From breakdown to breakthrough: How predictive and prescriptive maintenance are revolutionizing operations appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

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Top 5 information management predictions for energy and utility sector in 2024  https://blogs.opentext.com/5-information-management-predictions-for-the-energy-and-utility-sector-in-2024/ Thu, 09 Nov 2023 14:00:00 +0000 https://blogs.opentext.com/?p=75105

Hello from Alaska! 

The world is in a race for energy, and that race is just as much about information management as it is about energy itself.  Prices of most forms of energy (electricity, natural gas, oil, etc.) have recently touched record highs on an annual average basis—or are fast approaching such figures. With global population expected to rise by 2 billion people by 2050 (25%) and, by some estimates, the global economy to grow twofold and produce 15% more energy, the energy and utility industry will never move this slowly again.

To keep pace, it's imperative that companies across the energy and utility sector modernize how information is managed and seamlessly moves across and outside their enterprise. Information management best practices and technologies will need to be continually adopted to deliver energy to the communities they serve safely, reliably, sustainably, and cost effectively. 

Here are my predictions for the information management trends most likely to impact the energy and utility sector, as well as other industrial process markets, in 2024.

Smarter capital project execution

Cumulative energy capital expenditures are projected to increase 18 percent from 2021-2025 compared to the 2016-2020 timeframeThrough another lens, capital project investments will need to climb from $3.5 trillion today to $9.2 trillion by 2050.

Project excellence in the energy sector today will be considered average at best just one decade from now. And in many instances, project execution is already failing today. Despite advances in project management, construction management and engineering software categories,nearly 50% of projects worldwide between 2010 and 2020 were delayed. Three out of the top five reasons for those delays were related to engineering drawings, procurement issues, and other business processes. Companies must seek ways to eliminate these delays and incorporate content services, business network, artificial intelligence, and other information management technologies to execute capital projects on-time and on-budget.

Smarter asset operations

Today, if you look at an annual report for any energy company, they are managing 25 to 100 percent more gross plant, property, and equipment per employee than a decade ago. This ratio of man to machine will not just need to continue, but even accelerate.  Like capital project execution, what is excellent operational performance in the Energy sector today will be considered average in a decade, forcing organizations to evolve and modernize asset management strategies.

According to Siemens, ”Fortune Global 500 industrial organizations lose $1.5 trillion each year though unplanned downtime.” Energy, utility, and other industrial companies will incorporate technologies like asset information management, supply chain digitization, and AI to ensure operations and maintenance, engineering, and other key personnel have information at their fingertips to ensure critical equipment is always running.

Smarter and total experiences for utilities

J.D. Power, a leader in customer insights and perhaps best known for customer satisfaction surveys, points out, “unless utilities bring their customers along, utilities will struggle to achieve their clean energy goals they have put in place for the coming decades.” The key word in this statement is ‘along’ and implies that the sustainability journey for communities is based on relationships between the utility, its employees, and its customers.  

Just as there can be no customer experience without employee experience, there can also be no sustainability without social relationships. Utilities will extend their customer experience journeys to also include employee and operational experiences. The entire customer lifecycle—from attracting, to acquiring, to serving, to delighting and, most importantly, retaining—is cluttered with unstructured information. Utilities need customer experience technology that also prioritizes the employee experience to capture, organize, and integrate all of this information and gain insights, so they can provide an excellent total experience while also helping their customers move towards a more sustainable future.

Smarter cybersecurity for energy

Cybersecurity incidents targeting energy and commodities infrastructure reached record highs in 2022, according to S&P Global.  “Oil assets and infrastructure were the biggest targets for hackers, accounting for a third of all incidents since 2017.  Electricity networks were the next most vulnerable, making up over a quarter of all incidents.”  

Smart oilfields, smart grids, smart refineries, and other smart asset initiatives across the energy sector are only ‘smart’ if they don’t get hacked. These ‘smart’ initiatives have predominantly been focused on sophisticated operational technology and kept cybersecurity initiatives separate. With the convergence of information technology and operational technology systems, smart energy asset initiatives in 2024 have room to get smarter by employing cybersecurity best practices and technologies across the two systems as they further converge.   

Safer energy operations with AI

Reports indicate that up to 80% of employees’ time in the industrial process sector is spent searching through unstructured information. As a former field engineer in the energy sector, I’ve personally felt the impact that this has on productivity.

In the year ahead, advanced technologies such as generative AI and IoT will be increasingly adopted in areas to capture, analyze, and assess safety risks. Humans can do something machines cannot do (well, at least today) -- turn wrenches.  AI will be used to help them free up time and safely execute tasks that machines cannot perform.

Learn more about OpenText solutions for Utilities, Chemicals, Oil and Gas, Metals and Mining and Engineering, Procurement and Construction that can help you work smarter.


 

The post Top 5 information management predictions for energy and utility sector in 2024  appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

]]>

Hello from Alaska! 

The world is in a race for energy, and that race is just as much about information management as it is about energy itself.  Prices of most forms of energy (electricity, natural gas, oil, etc.) have recently touched record highs on an annual average basis—or are fast approaching such figures. With global population expected to rise by 2 billion people by 2050 (25%) and, by some estimates, the global economy to grow twofold and produce 15% more energy, the energy and utility industry will never move this slowly again.

To keep pace, it's imperative that companies across the energy and utility sector modernize how information is managed and seamlessly moves across and outside their enterprise. Information management best practices and technologies will need to be continually adopted to deliver energy to the communities they serve safely, reliably, sustainably, and cost effectively. 

Here are my predictions for the information management trends most likely to impact the energy and utility sector, as well as other industrial process markets, in 2024.

Smarter capital project execution

Cumulative energy capital expenditures are projected to increase 18 percent from 2021-2025 compared to the 2016-2020 timeframeThrough another lens, capital project investments will need to climb from $3.5 trillion today to $9.2 trillion by 2050.

Project excellence in the energy sector today will be considered average at best just one decade from now. And in many instances, project execution is already failing today. Despite advances in project management, construction management and engineering software categories,nearly 50% of projects worldwide between 2010 and 2020 were delayed. Three out of the top five reasons for those delays were related to engineering drawings, procurement issues, and other business processes. Companies must seek ways to eliminate these delays and incorporate content services, business network, artificial intelligence, and other information management technologies to execute capital projects on-time and on-budget.

Smarter asset operations

Today, if you look at an annual report for any energy company, they are managing 25 to 100 percent more gross plant, property, and equipment per employee than a decade ago. This ratio of man to machine will not just need to continue, but even accelerate.  Like capital project execution, what is excellent operational performance in the Energy sector today will be considered average in a decade, forcing organizations to evolve and modernize asset management strategies.

According to Siemens, ”Fortune Global 500 industrial organizations lose $1.5 trillion each year though unplanned downtime.” Energy, utility, and other industrial companies will incorporate technologies like asset information management, supply chain digitization, and AI to ensure operations and maintenance, engineering, and other key personnel have information at their fingertips to ensure critical equipment is always running.

Smarter and total experiences for utilities

J.D. Power, a leader in customer insights and perhaps best known for customer satisfaction surveys, points out, “unless utilities bring their customers along, utilities will struggle to achieve their clean energy goals they have put in place for the coming decades.” The key word in this statement is ‘along’ and implies that the sustainability journey for communities is based on relationships between the utility, its employees, and its customers.  

Just as there can be no customer experience without employee experience, there can also be no sustainability without social relationships. Utilities will extend their customer experience journeys to also include employee and operational experiences. The entire customer lifecycle—from attracting, to acquiring, to serving, to delighting and, most importantly, retaining—is cluttered with unstructured information. Utilities need customer experience technology that also prioritizes the employee experience to capture, organize, and integrate all of this information and gain insights, so they can provide an excellent total experience while also helping their customers move towards a more sustainable future.

Smarter cybersecurity for energy

Cybersecurity incidents targeting energy and commodities infrastructure reached record highs in 2022, according to S&P Global.  “Oil assets and infrastructure were the biggest targets for hackers, accounting for a third of all incidents since 2017.  Electricity networks were the next most vulnerable, making up over a quarter of all incidents.”  

Smart oilfields, smart grids, smart refineries, and other smart asset initiatives across the energy sector are only ‘smart’ if they don’t get hacked. These ‘smart’ initiatives have predominantly been focused on sophisticated operational technology and kept cybersecurity initiatives separate. With the convergence of information technology and operational technology systems, smart energy asset initiatives in 2024 have room to get smarter by employing cybersecurity best practices and technologies across the two systems as they further converge.   

Safer energy operations with AI

Reports indicate that up to 80% of employees’ time in the industrial process sector is spent searching through unstructured information. As a former field engineer in the energy sector, I’ve personally felt the impact that this has on productivity.

In the year ahead, advanced technologies such as generative AI and IoT will be increasingly adopted in areas to capture, analyze, and assess safety risks. Humans can do something machines cannot do (well, at least today) -- turn wrenches.  AI will be used to help them free up time and safely execute tasks that machines cannot perform.

Learn more about OpenText solutions for Utilities, Chemicals, Oil and Gas, Metals and Mining and Engineering, Procurement and Construction that can help you work smarter.


 

The post Top 5 information management predictions for energy and utility sector in 2024  appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

]]>
Making smart grids, smart fields, and smart facilities smarter with OpenText https://blogs.opentext.com/making-smart-grids-smart-fields-and-smart-facilities-smarter-with-opentext/ Wed, 26 Jul 2023 11:30:00 +0000 https://blogs.opentext.com/?p=71292

The world is in a race for energy. Energy companies today are striving to create intelligent, connected, secure, responsible and scalable enterprises. Smart grids, smart oilfields, smart refineries and other ‘smart’ assets are concepts that have been around for more than 25 years, but these concepts have largely relied on information from operational technology such as sensors, automated valves and control systems. They have also relied on IT applications such as Asset Performance Management (APM) for predictive maintenance strategies and Enterprise Asset Maintenance (EAM) systems for preventative maintenance and work order management.  

Although these elements are key to operating facilities, where these concepts have fallen short is in enabling the people who are tasked with engineering, installing, operating, maintaining, and supporting this equipment to work smarter and ensure it is running safely, reliably, and sustainably. 

Machines—and the people who work on them—are more important than ever

Industries such as Utilities, Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Metals & Mining, and Engineering, Procurement, and Construction are asset-intensive and therefore machine-intensive. These machines generate large amounts of data.  

In fact, according to OpenTextTM CEO and CTO Mark Barrenechea, machines now generate one million times more information in one day than all humans on this planet do in an entire year. Machines are more important than ever, and this is especially true across Utilities, Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Metals & Mining, and other industrial sectors.   

The machines in these industries are some of the most sophisticated machines and assets on the planet. Solar arrays, nuclear power generation facilities, deep offshore drilling platforms, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facilities, and other critical assets CANNOT fail.  

But it’s not just the machines that are more important than ever—it’s also the people that install them, operate them, maintain them, repair them, inspect them, and everyone across the organization that support them, directly or indirectly. Employees across these industries are more important than ever to ensure that these machines safely and sustainably deliver the energy and other commodities that people rely on every day. 

Re-creating a digital fabric of information 

If these machines cannot fail, this means that the employees who keep this critical equipment running cannot fail either. But the information employees need to keep this critical equipment running is often stored in different siloed systems, making it difficult and time consuming to access.  

Some reports estimate that up to 80% of employees’ time across the sector is spent searching through unstructured information. This is no longer acceptable. 

To combat these challenges and make smart grids, smart oilfields and smart facilities work smarter, Energy corporations need to create, strengthen, and extend a digital fabric across their enterprise. This helps ensure every person and every organization is enabled to perform at their best so these critical machines can, in turn, perform at their best and deliver the energy that fuels our planet. 

Creating smarter grids, smarter oilfields, smarter facilities with OpenText 

Creating smarter grids, smarter oilfields, and smarter facilities requires re-creating a digital fabric of information that enables the flow of all forms of information, structured and unstructured. It requires technology that eliminates data siloes and serves up role-specific, task-specific, and asset-specific information when it’s needed to keep this critical equipment running. With the right tools, you can have the information you need, when you need it, to work smarter and keep people, equipment, and the environment safe. 

Learn more about OpenText’s solutions for Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Metals & Mining, and Engineering, Procurement and Construction

The post Making smart grids, smart fields, and smart facilities smarter with OpenText appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

]]>

The world is in a race for energy. Energy companies today are striving to create intelligent, connected, secure, responsible and scalable enterprises. Smart grids, smart oilfields, smart refineries and other ‘smart’ assets are concepts that have been around for more than 25 years, but these concepts have largely relied on information from operational technology such as sensors, automated valves and control systems. They have also relied on IT applications such as Asset Performance Management (APM) for predictive maintenance strategies and Enterprise Asset Maintenance (EAM) systems for preventative maintenance and work order management.  

Although these elements are key to operating facilities, where these concepts have fallen short is in enabling the people who are tasked with engineering, installing, operating, maintaining, and supporting this equipment to work smarter and ensure it is running safely, reliably, and sustainably. 

Machines—and the people who work on them—are more important than ever

Industries such as Utilities, Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Metals & Mining, and Engineering, Procurement, and Construction are asset-intensive and therefore machine-intensive. These machines generate large amounts of data.  

In fact, according to OpenTextTM CEO and CTO Mark Barrenechea, machines now generate one million times more information in one day than all humans on this planet do in an entire year. Machines are more important than ever, and this is especially true across Utilities, Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Metals & Mining, and other industrial sectors.   

The machines in these industries are some of the most sophisticated machines and assets on the planet. Solar arrays, nuclear power generation facilities, deep offshore drilling platforms, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facilities, and other critical assets CANNOT fail.  

But it’s not just the machines that are more important than ever—it’s also the people that install them, operate them, maintain them, repair them, inspect them, and everyone across the organization that support them, directly or indirectly. Employees across these industries are more important than ever to ensure that these machines safely and sustainably deliver the energy and other commodities that people rely on every day. 

Re-creating a digital fabric of information 

If these machines cannot fail, this means that the employees who keep this critical equipment running cannot fail either. But the information employees need to keep this critical equipment running is often stored in different siloed systems, making it difficult and time consuming to access.  

Some reports estimate that up to 80% of employees’ time across the sector is spent searching through unstructured information. This is no longer acceptable. 

To combat these challenges and make smart grids, smart oilfields and smart facilities work smarter, Energy corporations need to create, strengthen, and extend a digital fabric across their enterprise. This helps ensure every person and every organization is enabled to perform at their best so these critical machines can, in turn, perform at their best and deliver the energy that fuels our planet. 

Creating smarter grids, smarter oilfields, smarter facilities with OpenText 

Creating smarter grids, smarter oilfields, and smarter facilities requires re-creating a digital fabric of information that enables the flow of all forms of information, structured and unstructured. It requires technology that eliminates data siloes and serves up role-specific, task-specific, and asset-specific information when it’s needed to keep this critical equipment running. With the right tools, you can have the information you need, when you need it, to work smarter and keep people, equipment, and the environment safe. 

Learn more about OpenText’s solutions for Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Metals & Mining, and Engineering, Procurement and Construction

The post Making smart grids, smart fields, and smart facilities smarter with OpenText appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

]]>
Working smarter with Smart Checklists and Forms https://blogs.opentext.com/working-smarter-with-smart-checklists-and-forms/ Thu, 13 Jul 2023 13:00:00 +0000 https://blogs.opentext.com/?p=72031 Image of an oil refinery at dusk.

The energy sector, and closely related industries such as chemicals and metals and mining, are asset-intensive industries. This means that revenue is generated from assets and a significant amount of costs come from these assets.

Being asset intensive also means that these industries are machine intensive. Rotating machinery, industrial instrumentation and meters, automated control valves, and other critical machinery and the data they generate help produce energy and other critical commodities the world relies on.

These machines produce a significant amount of data. According to OpenText CEO & CTO Mark Barrenechea, machines now generate one million times more information in one day than all humans on the planet do in an entire year. Not only are these machines more critical than ever but so are the people that install, operate, maintain, inspect, repair, and service them to deploy more of them and to keep them running safely. Operational checklists and safety forms are key content formats that can be better automated and governed to help those that execute this work do it safely and more efficiently.

Data produced by inspection checklist activity is often shared through email, file shares, or paper, which leads to data siloes and content duplication. This critical information is needed throughout the asset lifecycle—operations, maintenance, supply and purchasing. It is also critical to ensure the productivity and safety of the people that execute this work such as field and plant engineers, technicians, equipment operators, inspectors, and field service personnel.

The importance of operational checklists and HSE Forms

There are several different types of checklists and forms used to safely keep critical equipment running. Some checklists are used to ensure work on machinery and equipment is done correctly and safely. When I worked as a field engineer, some of the checklists I used included pre-job, pre-trip, operation, and post-job checklists. Other examples include operator rounds and mechanical integrity checklists.

There are also many health, safety and environmental (HSE) forms that I used in my former role, including job safety analysis, risk identification reports, HAZMAT, hot work permits, cold work permits and more. These forms are used to identify risk and communicate that risk to others. They are important documents for any robust HSE, risk and/or compliance program.

Unintentionally skipping a simple step on a checklist can result in significant damage to equipment, the facility, and even put lives in danger. I’ve personally experienced this. Luckily in my case, no significant damage was done and no injuries occurred.  ‘Near misses’ like this happen every single day across utilities, oil and gas, chemicals, and metals and mining, resulting in operational risk that can be prevented.

The importance of automation

However, most checklists and forms today are in either hard copy or are in a static electronic format like .pdf, .doc, or .xls and are manual in nature. Also, many are not able to be completed on a mobile device.

The manual nature of these documents is an obstacle to any company’s journey toward zero HSE incidents. First, these documents are often located in different siloed systems and it takes employees significant time to access and consolidate documents for the specific job at hand. In fact, it is estimated that employees spend up to 80% of their time searching through unstructured information to complete their work.

Second, the completion of these documents represents key milestones in any work order. In manual form, there are no notifications of those milestones to internal and external stakeholders. 

Third, upon completion, these documents often go ungoverned and are not centrally managed, making HSE, risk, and compliance management departments inefficient and less effective. In addition, the information contained in these manual documents doesn’t automatically feed into other key applications, such as Asset Performance Management (APM) and Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), and don’t contribute to predictive maintenance strategies.

Working smarter with Smart Checklists and Safety Forms for Energy

With Smart Checklists and Safety Forms for Energy, a key component within Asset Information Management for Energy, energy companies can work smarter and keep people, equipment and the environment safe. Templates of forms and checklists are centrally managed in a modern content management system utilizing business workspaces. 

Business workspace capabilities enable the appropriate checklists and forms to be delivered for the right operation and for the right role, thereby improving productivity. Business workspaces also automatically enable notifications to managers and other stakeholders when these documents have been started and completed, representing key milestones in any operation. Business workspaces also allow these documents to be easily accessible to ensure robust HSE and compliance programs.

Smart Checklists and Safety Forms for Energy can automatically send information to APM and EAM systems to protect and predict machine reliability, improving predictive maintenance strategies. Additionally, Smart Checklists and Safety Forms for Energy can be completed on any mobile device with iOS or Android operating systems in an online or offline environment.

Combining information and automation with checklists and forms will help energy and other companies in the industrial process sector make significant steps in their journey toward zero HSE incidents and keep critical equipment running.

The post Working smarter with Smart Checklists and Forms appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

]]>
Image of an oil refinery at dusk.

The energy sector, and closely related industries such as chemicals and metals and mining, are asset-intensive industries. This means that revenue is generated from assets and a significant amount of costs come from these assets.

Being asset intensive also means that these industries are machine intensive. Rotating machinery, industrial instrumentation and meters, automated control valves, and other critical machinery and the data they generate help produce energy and other critical commodities the world relies on.

These machines produce a significant amount of data. According to OpenText CEO & CTO Mark Barrenechea, machines now generate one million times more information in one day than all humans on the planet do in an entire year. Not only are these machines more critical than ever but so are the people that install, operate, maintain, inspect, repair, and service them to deploy more of them and to keep them running safely. Operational checklists and safety forms are key content formats that can be better automated and governed to help those that execute this work do it safely and more efficiently.

Data produced by inspection checklist activity is often shared through email, file shares, or paper, which leads to data siloes and content duplication. This critical information is needed throughout the asset lifecycle—operations, maintenance, supply and purchasing. It is also critical to ensure the productivity and safety of the people that execute this work such as field and plant engineers, technicians, equipment operators, inspectors, and field service personnel.

The importance of operational checklists and HSE Forms

There are several different types of checklists and forms used to safely keep critical equipment running. Some checklists are used to ensure work on machinery and equipment is done correctly and safely. When I worked as a field engineer, some of the checklists I used included pre-job, pre-trip, operation, and post-job checklists. Other examples include operator rounds and mechanical integrity checklists.

There are also many health, safety and environmental (HSE) forms that I used in my former role, including job safety analysis, risk identification reports, HAZMAT, hot work permits, cold work permits and more. These forms are used to identify risk and communicate that risk to others. They are important documents for any robust HSE, risk and/or compliance program.

Unintentionally skipping a simple step on a checklist can result in significant damage to equipment, the facility, and even put lives in danger. I’ve personally experienced this. Luckily in my case, no significant damage was done and no injuries occurred.  ‘Near misses’ like this happen every single day across utilities, oil and gas, chemicals, and metals and mining, resulting in operational risk that can be prevented.

The importance of automation

However, most checklists and forms today are in either hard copy or are in a static electronic format like .pdf, .doc, or .xls and are manual in nature. Also, many are not able to be completed on a mobile device.

The manual nature of these documents is an obstacle to any company’s journey toward zero HSE incidents. First, these documents are often located in different siloed systems and it takes employees significant time to access and consolidate documents for the specific job at hand. In fact, it is estimated that employees spend up to 80% of their time searching through unstructured information to complete their work.

Second, the completion of these documents represents key milestones in any work order. In manual form, there are no notifications of those milestones to internal and external stakeholders. 

Third, upon completion, these documents often go ungoverned and are not centrally managed, making HSE, risk, and compliance management departments inefficient and less effective. In addition, the information contained in these manual documents doesn’t automatically feed into other key applications, such as Asset Performance Management (APM) and Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), and don’t contribute to predictive maintenance strategies.

Working smarter with Smart Checklists and Safety Forms for Energy

With Smart Checklists and Safety Forms for Energy, a key component within Asset Information Management for Energy, energy companies can work smarter and keep people, equipment and the environment safe. Templates of forms and checklists are centrally managed in a modern content management system utilizing business workspaces. 

Business workspace capabilities enable the appropriate checklists and forms to be delivered for the right operation and for the right role, thereby improving productivity. Business workspaces also automatically enable notifications to managers and other stakeholders when these documents have been started and completed, representing key milestones in any operation. Business workspaces also allow these documents to be easily accessible to ensure robust HSE and compliance programs.

Smart Checklists and Safety Forms for Energy can automatically send information to APM and EAM systems to protect and predict machine reliability, improving predictive maintenance strategies. Additionally, Smart Checklists and Safety Forms for Energy can be completed on any mobile device with iOS or Android operating systems in an online or offline environment.

Combining information and automation with checklists and forms will help energy and other companies in the industrial process sector make significant steps in their journey toward zero HSE incidents and keep critical equipment running.

The post Working smarter with Smart Checklists and Forms appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

]]>
Document collaboration with contractors, suppliers and owner/operators https://blogs.opentext.com/document-collaboration-with-contractors-suppliers-and-owner-operators/ Thu, 02 Mar 2023 13:18:51 +0000 https://blogs.opentext.com/?p=69860

Online collaboration is the key accelerator in Capital Projects. It must be used in a clever way otherwise there is a big risk in missing the benefits and ending up in chaos. Engineering Document Management (EDM) systems enable contractors and suppliers to deliver documents online and owner/operators to reply rapidly and efficiently with comments. Online collaboration reduces the number of iterations by improving the quality of document delivery before entering the approval process. 

There can be a large number of vendors, suppliers and contractors contributing to a capital project executed by an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) firm, or the owner/operator themselves. Contracts between these parties define who shall deliver which document to a work package at a particular date.

In my last two blogs in this series on EDM for capital projects I discussed the importance of tracking the review and approval of documents in work packages according to the schedule of the work breakdown structure.  This blog covers how the delivery and review of documents from suppliers and contractors to customers can be effectively managed.

A capital project is a fragmented network of specialized suppliers and contractors who contribute to the design and build of a facility, plant, or infrastructure for an owner/operator. A reasonable part of this contribution consists of the delivery of models, drawings, and documents.

Document control in Capital Projects

EDM systems in the cloud act as document exchange platforms for any contributor and any relevant work package of a capital project. On the cloud platform, the work packages are represented by workspaces that act as logical containers in the EDM system where a defined team can engage to share and work on documents to be delivered as part of that work package.

The Workspace Concept overview

Engineering work packages of a capital project are (contractually) agreed subsets of the total amount of work to be delivered. Depending on the type of project, industry or discipline, a work package can consist of a discipline or just a component that may come from a single vendor, contractor, or supplier. The customer work package is the equivalent deliverable for the EPC to their customer.

EDM - workspace concept

I recommend creating one project workspace for each work package that has the same responsible engineer/contractor, reviewer, and approver group because the responsibilities of submitting the documents, delivering, reviewing and approving are automatically determined by the assignments of users to the project roles.

Work package workspaces shared with suppliers or contractors

In cloud based EDM systems the ‘package responsible engineer’ can grant limited access to the supplier for uploading new documents and maintain the metadata of those documents.

Upon submission the documents are visible for the package responsible engineer for viewing and for making comments, markups and annotations which may lead to a clarification process with the supplier and eventually the delivery of a new version of that document revision.

Once the package responsible engineer is happy with the delivered documents, they can pass the package of documents on for review and approval. (Next blog coming soon on Review & Approval State Flows in Capital Projects). As a result, package workspaces allow agile collaboration on documents in a draft state between suppliers/contractors and the package responsible engineer.

Master Document Workspace

Once a new document or a new revision of a document is approved/rejected it will be signed into the Master Document Repository which represents a central document repository for all controlled documents in a capital project across all work packages. The Master Document Repository always keeps the most recent, approved/rejected revision of controlled documents and keeps track of which team, contractor, discipline, or work package is currently working on a new revision. It also controls the document revisions which were sent to the customer.

Work package workspaces shared with customer representatives

Supplier documents to customer

The EPC is obliged to deliver documents to their customers according to the contracts between the EPC and the customer. The approval of those documents by the customer indicates the completion of successful delivery of a work package. That is why the EPC requests approval from the customer for internally approved revisions of documents to be delivered. The customer has the option to approve, approve with comments, reject, or acknowledge (in case of ‘sent for information’). The number of documents to be sent to the customer for approval/information may come from multiple suppliers but is a subset of the total number of documents residing in the Master Document Repository. To facilitate the understanding of the customer role in work package workspaces, see the light red right-hand side of the workspace concept (image above).

Fully controlled document delivery processes

An EDM system offers a comprehensive and easy to use online platform for suppliers and contractors to submit the requested documents and allows the package responsible engineer of the EPC to check the documents. The responsible engineer collaborates on the stack of documents with the supplier until it is ready to be processed further into the review and approval process. Document Controllers of the EPC can control at any time if the supplier is on schedule with the delivery of the requested documents. It is of utmost importance for the project team to eventually deliver those documents to the customer on time and quality which are agreed upon in the contracts with the customer. EDM systems manage the whole document delivery and review chain from suppliers via EPC to customer.

OpenText™ Professional Services have years of experience in Engineering Document Management in Capital Projects, please contact us if you would like to speak to an expert with regards to your project.


Author: Jens Friehmelt is a Senior Manager in OpenText Professional Services EMEA leading an international team that combines multiple OpenText technologies to serve customers with best-practice solutions for Engineering, Construction, and Maintenance processes.

The post Document collaboration with contractors, suppliers and owner/operators appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

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Online collaboration is the key accelerator in Capital Projects. It must be used in a clever way otherwise there is a big risk in missing the benefits and ending up in chaos. Engineering Document Management (EDM) systems enable contractors and suppliers to deliver documents online and owner/operators to reply rapidly and efficiently with comments. Online collaboration reduces the number of iterations by improving the quality of document delivery before entering the approval process. 

There can be a large number of vendors, suppliers and contractors contributing to a capital project executed by an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) firm, or the owner/operator themselves. Contracts between these parties define who shall deliver which document to a work package at a particular date.

In my last two blogs in this series on EDM for capital projects I discussed the importance of tracking the review and approval of documents in work packages according to the schedule of the work breakdown structure.  This blog covers how the delivery and review of documents from suppliers and contractors to customers can be effectively managed.

A capital project is a fragmented network of specialized suppliers and contractors who contribute to the design and build of a facility, plant, or infrastructure for an owner/operator. A reasonable part of this contribution consists of the delivery of models, drawings, and documents.

Document control in Capital Projects

EDM systems in the cloud act as document exchange platforms for any contributor and any relevant work package of a capital project. On the cloud platform, the work packages are represented by workspaces that act as logical containers in the EDM system where a defined team can engage to share and work on documents to be delivered as part of that work package.

The Workspace Concept overview

Engineering work packages of a capital project are (contractually) agreed subsets of the total amount of work to be delivered. Depending on the type of project, industry or discipline, a work package can consist of a discipline or just a component that may come from a single vendor, contractor, or supplier. The customer work package is the equivalent deliverable for the EPC to their customer.

EDM - workspace concept

I recommend creating one project workspace for each work package that has the same responsible engineer/contractor, reviewer, and approver group because the responsibilities of submitting the documents, delivering, reviewing and approving are automatically determined by the assignments of users to the project roles.

Work package workspaces shared with suppliers or contractors

In cloud based EDM systems the ‘package responsible engineer’ can grant limited access to the supplier for uploading new documents and maintain the metadata of those documents.

Upon submission the documents are visible for the package responsible engineer for viewing and for making comments, markups and annotations which may lead to a clarification process with the supplier and eventually the delivery of a new version of that document revision.

Once the package responsible engineer is happy with the delivered documents, they can pass the package of documents on for review and approval. (Next blog coming soon on Review & Approval State Flows in Capital Projects). As a result, package workspaces allow agile collaboration on documents in a draft state between suppliers/contractors and the package responsible engineer.

Master Document Workspace

Once a new document or a new revision of a document is approved/rejected it will be signed into the Master Document Repository which represents a central document repository for all controlled documents in a capital project across all work packages. The Master Document Repository always keeps the most recent, approved/rejected revision of controlled documents and keeps track of which team, contractor, discipline, or work package is currently working on a new revision. It also controls the document revisions which were sent to the customer.

Work package workspaces shared with customer representatives

Supplier documents to customer

The EPC is obliged to deliver documents to their customers according to the contracts between the EPC and the customer. The approval of those documents by the customer indicates the completion of successful delivery of a work package. That is why the EPC requests approval from the customer for internally approved revisions of documents to be delivered. The customer has the option to approve, approve with comments, reject, or acknowledge (in case of ‘sent for information’). The number of documents to be sent to the customer for approval/information may come from multiple suppliers but is a subset of the total number of documents residing in the Master Document Repository. To facilitate the understanding of the customer role in work package workspaces, see the light red right-hand side of the workspace concept (image above).

Fully controlled document delivery processes

An EDM system offers a comprehensive and easy to use online platform for suppliers and contractors to submit the requested documents and allows the package responsible engineer of the EPC to check the documents. The responsible engineer collaborates on the stack of documents with the supplier until it is ready to be processed further into the review and approval process. Document Controllers of the EPC can control at any time if the supplier is on schedule with the delivery of the requested documents. It is of utmost importance for the project team to eventually deliver those documents to the customer on time and quality which are agreed upon in the contracts with the customer. EDM systems manage the whole document delivery and review chain from suppliers via EPC to customer.

OpenText™ Professional Services have years of experience in Engineering Document Management in Capital Projects, please contact us if you would like to speak to an expert with regards to your project.


Author: Jens Friehmelt is a Senior Manager in OpenText Professional Services EMEA leading an international team that combines multiple OpenText technologies to serve customers with best-practice solutions for Engineering, Construction, and Maintenance processes.

The post Document collaboration with contractors, suppliers and owner/operators appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

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Top 5 information management predictions for the industrial process sector https://blogs.opentext.com/top-5-information-management-predictions-for-the-industrial-process-sector/ Fri, 06 Jan 2023 17:00:00 +0000 https://blogs.opentext.com/?p=68213 Decorative image of an energy plant

Hello from Alaska! Around this time last year, I shared my predictions on trends impacting the oil & gas and utility industries. This year, I am expanding my predictions to encompass the industrial process sector.

Why? Although segments such as utilities, oil and gas, chemicals, and metals and mining are unique, there are many similarities among them. These include, but aren’t limited to, asset-intensive business models, common suppliers, interrelated economic fundamentals, significant roles in the energy transition, information management maturity, and information management use cases. 

Given these similarities, here are my predictions for the information management trends most likely to impact the industrial process sector in 2023.

Continued move toward cloud adoption

All market segments within the industrial process sector are making good progress toward the cloud. Although this industry is lagging others in this area, the important thing is that progress is being made. 

Chemicals, metals and mining, and Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) companies are leading the way in cloud adoption in this sector and continue to make progress. Oil and gas and utilities are progressing more slowly yet are nonetheless increasing their cloud adoption and will continue to do so into 2023. This is because the energy transition will require information siloes to be broken down and cloud technology will play a foundational role in this.

Acceleration of business network automation

Industries like manufacturing, financial services and automotive have led the way in realizing the benefits of supply chain automation. Where they have succeeded, it’s likely others will follow. 

Oil and gas, chemicals, and metals and mining have made early strides in automating their supply networks. However, it’s far from industry standard. With supply chain disruptions this year, these early movers have paved the way for global super majors to adopt these best practices to automate complex, massive supply and customer networks and realize significant savings—up to 90% per transaction, according to some. 

The World Economic Forum says “the global importance of energy security and the need to bolster supply chains will require a level of energy investment not seen since 2007.” However, there is a $22 trillion gap between current spending on new technologies and projected 2030 needs. Investments in new technologies and business network automation will need to increase in the year ahead to ensure continued access to affordable energy.

Improved content governance with best practices and technologies

Governance is defined by McKinsey as “the set of internal system of practices, controls, and procedures a company adopts in order to govern itself, make effective decisions, comply with the law, and meet the needs of external stakeholders.”

Content plays an important role in governance, as nearly every business process utilizes documents in its execution. For example, nearly 50% of projects worldwide suffered schedule delays in the past decade, and two out of the top three reasons for those delays were related to flaws in engineering drawings and associated processes. 

In 2023, more companies will adopt content management best practices and technologies to improve governance, complete projects on-time, keep their workers safe and manage risk at levels as low as reasonably achievable.

Enhanced experiences for customers and employees

The ‘social’ in environmental, social and governance (ESG) is defined by McKinsey as “the relationships your company has and the reputation it fosters with people and institutions in the communities where you do business.” 

Strong, lasting customer relationships are created by experiences that leave customers wanting more. But it’s not possible for a business to create long-lasting customer experiences without creating similar experiences for employees that directly or indirectly serve its customers. This is known as total experience, which creates superior shared experiences by weaving together four disciplines – employee experience (EX), customer experience (CX), user experience (UX) and multiexperience (MX) – across multiple touchpoints to accelerate growth.  

The path to a sustainable future requires utilities, specialty chemical companies and other industrial corporations serving thousands to millions of customers to invest in technologies and best practices that deliver total experiences for customers, employees and their communities. 

Increased adoption of AI, IoT and other advanced technologies

Reports indicate that up to 80% of employees’ time in the industrial process sector is spent searching through unstructured information. As a former field engineer in the energy industry, I’ve personally felt the impact this has on productivity—as well as other business impacts such as project delays, asset downtime, safety risks and more. 

In the year ahead, advanced technologies such as AI and IoT will increasingly be adopted across industrial process companies in conjunction with other technologies to organize and integrate unstructured information with structured information. Doing so will help employees spend less time searching through unstructured information and more time deploying new assets on-time and keeping critical equipment running.

Learn more about how OpenText solutions for utilities, chemicals, oil and gas, metals and mining and EPCs can help your organization overcome its challenges.

The post Top 5 information management predictions for the industrial process sector appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

]]>
Decorative image of an energy plant

Hello from Alaska! Around this time last year, I shared my predictions on trends impacting the oil & gas and utility industries. This year, I am expanding my predictions to encompass the industrial process sector.

Why? Although segments such as utilities, oil and gas, chemicals, and metals and mining are unique, there are many similarities among them. These include, but aren’t limited to, asset-intensive business models, common suppliers, interrelated economic fundamentals, significant roles in the energy transition, information management maturity, and information management use cases. 

Given these similarities, here are my predictions for the information management trends most likely to impact the industrial process sector in 2023.

Continued move toward cloud adoption

All market segments within the industrial process sector are making good progress toward the cloud. Although this industry is lagging others in this area, the important thing is that progress is being made. 

Chemicals, metals and mining, and Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) companies are leading the way in cloud adoption in this sector and continue to make progress. Oil and gas and utilities are progressing more slowly yet are nonetheless increasing their cloud adoption and will continue to do so into 2023. This is because the energy transition will require information siloes to be broken down and cloud technology will play a foundational role in this.

Acceleration of business network automation

Industries like manufacturing, financial services and automotive have led the way in realizing the benefits of supply chain automation. Where they have succeeded, it’s likely others will follow. 

Oil and gas, chemicals, and metals and mining have made early strides in automating their supply networks. However, it’s far from industry standard. With supply chain disruptions this year, these early movers have paved the way for global super majors to adopt these best practices to automate complex, massive supply and customer networks and realize significant savings—up to 90% per transaction, according to some. 

The World Economic Forum says “the global importance of energy security and the need to bolster supply chains will require a level of energy investment not seen since 2007.” However, there is a $22 trillion gap between current spending on new technologies and projected 2030 needs. Investments in new technologies and business network automation will need to increase in the year ahead to ensure continued access to affordable energy.

Improved content governance with best practices and technologies

Governance is defined by McKinsey as “the set of internal system of practices, controls, and procedures a company adopts in order to govern itself, make effective decisions, comply with the law, and meet the needs of external stakeholders.”

Content plays an important role in governance, as nearly every business process utilizes documents in its execution. For example, nearly 50% of projects worldwide suffered schedule delays in the past decade, and two out of the top three reasons for those delays were related to flaws in engineering drawings and associated processes. 

In 2023, more companies will adopt content management best practices and technologies to improve governance, complete projects on-time, keep their workers safe and manage risk at levels as low as reasonably achievable.

Enhanced experiences for customers and employees

The ‘social’ in environmental, social and governance (ESG) is defined by McKinsey as “the relationships your company has and the reputation it fosters with people and institutions in the communities where you do business.” 

Strong, lasting customer relationships are created by experiences that leave customers wanting more. But it’s not possible for a business to create long-lasting customer experiences without creating similar experiences for employees that directly or indirectly serve its customers. This is known as total experience, which creates superior shared experiences by weaving together four disciplines – employee experience (EX), customer experience (CX), user experience (UX) and multiexperience (MX) – across multiple touchpoints to accelerate growth.  

The path to a sustainable future requires utilities, specialty chemical companies and other industrial corporations serving thousands to millions of customers to invest in technologies and best practices that deliver total experiences for customers, employees and their communities. 

Increased adoption of AI, IoT and other advanced technologies

Reports indicate that up to 80% of employees’ time in the industrial process sector is spent searching through unstructured information. As a former field engineer in the energy industry, I’ve personally felt the impact this has on productivity—as well as other business impacts such as project delays, asset downtime, safety risks and more. 

In the year ahead, advanced technologies such as AI and IoT will increasingly be adopted across industrial process companies in conjunction with other technologies to organize and integrate unstructured information with structured information. Doing so will help employees spend less time searching through unstructured information and more time deploying new assets on-time and keeping critical equipment running.

Learn more about how OpenText solutions for utilities, chemicals, oil and gas, metals and mining and EPCs can help your organization overcome its challenges.

The post Top 5 information management predictions for the industrial process sector appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

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Information management and the energy transition https://blogs.opentext.com/information-management-and-the-energy-transition/ Wed, 01 Sep 2021 20:31:24 +0000 https://otblogs.wpengine.com/?p=59636

Greetings from Anchorage, Alaska! As the new Industry Strategist for the energy industry at OpenText, I’m proud to come from a US state where the energy industry is of paramount importance. Alaska is home to Prudhoe Bay, the largest oilfield ever discovered in North America. It’s also a state where over 25% of the GDP and 85% of revenues are generated from the energy industry. 

I’ve been part of the industry for more than 20 years and have worked with critical technologies along the way that help keep the world running. From downhole logging devices in oil & gas wells to sensors that automate power generation facilities to software that predicts critical asset failures, I’ve always worked closely with technologies that are vital to the energy industry. What excites me most about OpenText™ is the power that information management brings as energy companies face the next set of business challenges.

This is particularly true today as we undergo the energy transition.

The energy transition

There is one fact about every oil well that rings true: it increases in production and then declines in production due to geological constraints. This is true for every oilfield and there always comes a time when the production decline from existing producing wells is faster than the rise in production from new wells. Case in point: Prudhoe Bay peaked production at 2 million barrels/day in 1988 and produces at less than 500,000 today. The world isn’t running out of oil, yet there certainly are constraints to the speed at which it’s produced.

The challenge of energy transition

There has been a great deal of talk about energy transition. The term refers to the global energy sector’s shift from fossil-based systems of energy production to renewable energy sources like wind, wave and solar.  

While the energy transition is inevitable, hydrocarbon-based fuels and the speed at which we can exploit them will play an integral part in that transition and the world economy. And because of that, across the entire energy value chain, capital projects will need to be completed on time and within budget. Operations will need to keep critical assets running and maintained. Health, safety, and environmental compliance will continue to be of utmost importance. 

Companies across the entire energy value chain will need to capture, organize, integrate, protect, govern, and exchange information like no other time in the history of the energy industry.

Referring to the energy transition, Bain & Co said that “The industries under the most pressure to change are the same ones that have the experience and organization necessary to transform the world’s use of energy and resources.”

In fact, I might go one step further and say these industries are the only ones with the existing global reach and capabilities necessary. There’s no doubt that we’re witnessing an accelerating trend towards the use of renewables but, even with our very best efforts, we simply will not be able to meet surging demand with renewables alone. The global population is predicted to be 9.7 billion in 2050 – a full 25% more than it is today. That’s a whole lot more mouths to feed and energy resources to consume.

According to irena.org, the energy transition will be enabled by the use of ‘information technology and smart technologies’. Bringing us neatly back to OpenText.

Data is the new oil

I sometimes wonder if the Economist had some sort of bet to see if it could create the world’s fastest cliché when it said that ‘data is the new oil’. However, it does seem quite appropriate here.

The energy transition and its scale will be like no energy transformation before. There is a pivotal role for digital technologies in replacing and automating previously physical and manual processes. Of course, digital technologies are only the tools. It’s the data you have and what you do with it that’s important.

Helping companies across the energy and other sectors securely capture, govern, and exchange information with suppliers and customers on a global scale will be imperative. It’s the only way to ensure that we transition to an energy environment that’s affordable, available, sustainable and inclusive.

If you’d like to know more about OpenText solutions for the energy sector, visit our Oil & Gas and Utilities webpages.

The post Information management and the energy transition appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

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Greetings from Anchorage, Alaska! As the new Industry Strategist for the energy industry at OpenText, I’m proud to come from a US state where the energy industry is of paramount importance. Alaska is home to Prudhoe Bay, the largest oilfield ever discovered in North America. It’s also a state where over 25% of the GDP and 85% of revenues are generated from the energy industry. 

I’ve been part of the industry for more than 20 years and have worked with critical technologies along the way that help keep the world running. From downhole logging devices in oil & gas wells to sensors that automate power generation facilities to software that predicts critical asset failures, I’ve always worked closely with technologies that are vital to the energy industry. What excites me most about OpenText™ is the power that information management brings as energy companies face the next set of business challenges.

This is particularly true today as we undergo the energy transition.

The energy transition

There is one fact about every oil well that rings true: it increases in production and then declines in production due to geological constraints. This is true for every oilfield and there always comes a time when the production decline from existing producing wells is faster than the rise in production from new wells. Case in point: Prudhoe Bay peaked production at 2 million barrels/day in 1988 and produces at less than 500,000 today. The world isn’t running out of oil, yet there certainly are constraints to the speed at which it’s produced.

The challenge of energy transition

There has been a great deal of talk about energy transition. The term refers to the global energy sector’s shift from fossil-based systems of energy production to renewable energy sources like wind, wave and solar.  

While the energy transition is inevitable, hydrocarbon-based fuels and the speed at which we can exploit them will play an integral part in that transition and the world economy. And because of that, across the entire energy value chain, capital projects will need to be completed on time and within budget. Operations will need to keep critical assets running and maintained. Health, safety, and environmental compliance will continue to be of utmost importance. 

Companies across the entire energy value chain will need to capture, organize, integrate, protect, govern, and exchange information like no other time in the history of the energy industry.

Referring to the energy transition, Bain & Co said that “The industries under the most pressure to change are the same ones that have the experience and organization necessary to transform the world’s use of energy and resources.”

In fact, I might go one step further and say these industries are the only ones with the existing global reach and capabilities necessary. There’s no doubt that we’re witnessing an accelerating trend towards the use of renewables but, even with our very best efforts, we simply will not be able to meet surging demand with renewables alone. The global population is predicted to be 9.7 billion in 2050 – a full 25% more than it is today. That’s a whole lot more mouths to feed and energy resources to consume.

According to irena.org, the energy transition will be enabled by the use of ‘information technology and smart technologies’. Bringing us neatly back to OpenText.

Data is the new oil

I sometimes wonder if the Economist had some sort of bet to see if it could create the world’s fastest cliché when it said that ‘data is the new oil’. However, it does seem quite appropriate here.

The energy transition and its scale will be like no energy transformation before. There is a pivotal role for digital technologies in replacing and automating previously physical and manual processes. Of course, digital technologies are only the tools. It’s the data you have and what you do with it that’s important.

Helping companies across the energy and other sectors securely capture, govern, and exchange information with suppliers and customers on a global scale will be imperative. It’s the only way to ensure that we transition to an energy environment that’s affordable, available, sustainable and inclusive.

If you’d like to know more about OpenText solutions for the energy sector, visit our Oil & Gas and Utilities webpages.

The post Information management and the energy transition appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

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