One-time Field Data Capture
challenge. As these headaches become more pronounced in the industry, new technologies are being developed to help contractors improve their business efficiency and keep up with the increasing demands of their customers.
A Case Study – NorCan Electric
Alberta-based company NorCan Electric, an industrial contractor heavily involved in oilsands development, has quickly realised the value of using technology to improve its business processes and level of service. With much of its work coming from capital projects in excess of US$20 million, NorCan faced a critical challenge managing such substantial projects.
Prior to looking at a technology solution, NorCan’s time-and-billing process was a complex exercise. Company foremen would collect timesheets from field personnel, go back to the office and hand the timesheets to payroll staff, who would enter the information into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, summarise it and then enter it again into NorCan’s payroll software. With different NorCan customers having different information-reporting requirements, this process was a lot of work, particularly for large projects. The level of complexity meant that the management team had to work 12 hours a day to keep on top of things. Job costing was made difficult due to delays while payroll data were updated and analysed, and the process was highly susceptible to human error as data were being written down, entered and re-entered.
NorCan used spreadsheets heavily but found them to be significantly lacking in their ability to support the task at hand. “We squeezed as much as we could out of Excel,” said Cameron Cassels, NorCan President. “We would touch data so many times, it was absolutely killing us.” As a result, increasing pressure was being placed on NorCan staff, creating workplace stress that began to affect performance and morale. Something had to change.
Enter Singletouch
Given the challenges it was facing, NorCan was all too ready to listen when approached by data-management software vendor Singletouch. Founded in 1997, Singletouch has developed a comprehensive data-capture platform for industrial contractors that enables realtime input of information in the field. With Singletouch, data are entered just one time, easily and accurately, helping to eliminate the paperwork headaches that have plagued the industry. The outcome is a highly accurate, thoroughly comprehensive and completely up-to-date tracking of all costs associated with the project, meaning that realtime project-status reports can be delivered to the customer whenever required, and accurate and timely invoices can be issued every month, resulting in swifter payment, better cash-flow management, improved efficiency and higher profits.
NorCan rolled out the Singletouch solution in July 2008 and, before the end of August, the company was already seeing business benefits. With Singletouch in place, NorCan foremen now use a barcode scanner to clock employees in and out. At the end of the shift, the foremen then simply synchronise the device with the server, and all data are accurately transmitted to the back office. In January, a separate Singletouch implementation was rolled out allowing foremen to create purchase orders. This brings together all the
EXPLORATION & PRODUCTION – VOLUME 8 ISSUE 1
information needed for invoices, which saves more time for office staff and also improves job costing and forecasting, since purchase order information as well as timesheet data are both now available as soon as a shift is over. As a result of rolling out Singletouch, one NorCan field supervisor was able to reduce his daily paper burden from a couple of hours to 10–15 minutes.
Back Office Benefits
Back at the NorCan head office, administration staff can now print daily and weekly timesheets and bundle them with the invoices. The timesheets can also be exported to the company’s accounting system. The most immediate benefit of adopting Singletouch was making life easier for office staff, since having all the timesheet data in the same place made it much easier for NorCan to meet customers’ reporting requirements.
NorCan is now able to keep its clients informed on project data by generating up-to-date budget status reports in just one day, an exercise that previously took up to 10 business days. Also, with these changes, NorCan no longer needs to make heavy use of spreadsheets, allowing management to focus on building business and engaging with prospective clients, rather than crunching numbers.
“It took away a tremendous amount of frustration,” Cassels said. “We can now react far more quickly when our clients request a current view of the cost of a project. Our general and administrative costs have been slashed and fewer office staff are required to support our workers in the field.”
Now that the oilsands industry is facing a construction slump, NorCan is confident that adopting these kinds of business-process improvements has left the company in an excellent position to weather a downturn, thanks to the leanness of its operations and its sterling reputation for premium services.
“I won’t have to lay off as I otherwise would, and we can take on a lot more work before people start to sweat in the office,” he said. “In a downturn, I don’t have to lay off Singletouch.”
Enter Data Once
In an industry where cash-flow is critical, and timely and accurate billing essential, this back-office integration eliminates paperwork bottlenecks. Accurate details are entered in the system only once, at the time and point where the transaction occurs, and delivered instantaneously to all stakeholders, eliminating the logjams and errors traditionally associated with the filing of paperwork and subsequent re-entering of details to create invoices and reports.
At any time, built-in reports provide an up-to-the-second view of project completion status, with all work and materials accurately accounted for, and actual performance against budgets and schedules easily reported to the customer.
Ultimately, Singletouch has designed a solution for contractors that will not only help them to conduct their business more effectively, but also provide their oil and gas company customers with unparalleled insight into their business, with accurate, timely reporting on the budget and status of major projects. If you are not getting this kind of information from your contractors, maybe you need to ask them why not. n
143
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148