In the field and in the back office, information technology, and the automation that arises from it, continues to boost efficiency. This is not your father’s automation.
By Paul Wiseman
For decades, oilfield automation was controlled by devices called Programmable Logic Controllers. A PLC is a small, limited function computer that controls process in the Oil Patch and in other industries.
Over those years, they’ve been reliable, SitePro cofounder Aaron Phillips says, and they did indeed advance the cause of automation. But Phillips says PLC’s are not adaptable to the machine learning and artificial intelligence paradigms required of today’s and tomorrow’s oilfield efficiencies.
Phillips and the Lubbock-based company’s other cofounder, David Bateman, saw—specifically in the saltwater disposal sector—a need to build a highway to present and future technology demands. “We decided not to use a PLC-based system but instead to use industrial PCs (IPCs)” he said.
“Instantly, you’ve moved the industry ahead 30 years, just by that simple change.”
In researching the possibilities, Phillips and Bateman learned that “the automation industry had their customers almost held hostage because you had to know very special language to even set up those PLCs. You had to actually go program them” at each individual location, in a program called ‘ladder logic.’”
Alternatively, larger E&P companies would have whole departments assigned just to ladder logic programming and maintenance.
“So one of the first things we did with SitePro was, we made it to where it was just point-and-click,” said Phillips. “Rather than having to know some special language, you just needed to understand how your facility was supposed to run.”
As with many current generation automation systems, they added a remote control component. This was the key. “Remote control was really what sparked our ability to fuel the digital oilfield.”
With the growth of machine learning, clients are looking past the simple collection of data and on to ways for the system to analyze it for the purpose of making decisions—whether those decisions are made by humans or the machines themselves.
“It all results in a decision being made,” whether to adjust pump speed, make a repair, or something else. “How do you act on that decision?” Phillips asked.
“Our proprietary remote control, which was patented, is that next link. So once you’ve run your analytics, once there are decision points generated, you can utilize our remote control to go act on it anywhere in your system. It doesn’t require a person to have to play the relayer.”
Phillips sees this as opening the door to accommodate a range of analytics products now under development. “We can be a huge facilitator for that.”
The path they took in the startup phase led them to develop the framework as it is today. Instead of starting with money from investors and trying to please outsiders not familiar with the industry, they “started from the ground up. We went out there, we spent lots of time at these facilities. We literally were programming in the middle of Coyanosa, Texas, in the middle of the summer in a small metal shed at an SWD [salt water disposal facility]—just learning all the ins and outs of it, designing the software for that,” Phillips recalled.
They took the same approach for pipeline software design, talking to the industry’s field people and back office personnel to find out what they needed their software to do for them.
“So many times companies will stop at one point or the other,” he said. “They’re like, ‘We’ll do field stuff or do the back-end office stuff.’ But it’s all one flow. Don’t force your customer to chop it up just because you don’t want to do it,” Phillips advised. Relying on Excel or another third-party spreadsheet is not necessary in 2019.
The ultimate goal of automation, he said, is to free humans from the mundane data-crunching tasks to allow them to cover more territory and be more productive.
STEM Software founder Joshua E. Crawford, headquartered in Odessa, agrees with the idea of connecting field automation with the back office in order to boost productivity in all departments. In the market as a whole he’s seen much more progress in automating the field than in connecting the field with the office.
That is exactly where he saw an opportunity.
Companies are having to be more efficient in the field, he noted, “To meet the price points in order to make a living. But the problem we’re seeing is that they’re doing the work and they put the bill in the mail and they think that’s it.”
Losing tickets before they’re sent or losing track of bills after they’re mailed out is a huge cause of delayed or even lost revenue for many service companies.
Crawford founded STEM Software as a means for getting accounting data, such as work orders and tickets, from the field to the back office. Because the new system, known as REAP Field Service Management, greatly reduced the chances of tickets blowing out the window or lost under a seat, or of data entry people misreading smudgy handwriting, that alone increased cash flow. A much higher percentage of work got billed sooner than ever before. Crawford expects to release REAP to the public in the first quarter of 2019.
But in continued discussions with clients, he discovered there was still a missing link. “STEM was always about getting tickets from the field to the accounting office, to build those communications,” he said. “But now we know we also have to go from the accounting office back to the field.”
At first glance, that sounds backwards. But in discussions with clients, Crawford discovered that many tickets were turned in without the required authorization stamp from the client. Without a stamp or signature showing that the client’s representative on the site agreed that the work was done to specifications, payment often can’t be issued.
There was still a disconnect between accounting and the field. “Accounting people have a hard time getting the field guys to go out and get those [stamps], and the field guys are having a hard time getting the company man to sign off on stuff,” so there was still a bottleneck, he said. “Accounting needed a way to track bills in process and, for those that were late, to follow up and see what needed to be done to get them collected.”
Crawford stated that E&P companies have also automated their accounting processes, so they have fewer people in place to verify that incoming tickets are done right and to kick back those that are incomplete or incorrect.
For service companies’ field personnel to easily participate in verifying tickets and, when necessary, getting client approval, the process needed to be available on smart devices carried in the field, Crawford said.
When a service company’s field tech needs to meet with the client to discuss ways to complete payment, STEM’s REAP program allows the field tech to go to the client’s location and display the ticket on a smart device.
Nothing can be changed directly there, but if the client has the paper copy and can apply the requisite stamp or signature, the field tech can photograph it on their smart device and the software will send it to accounting, where the new version will be connected to the old one. From there it’s forwarded to the client’s accounting department for payment.
He compared this to phone apps that take pictures of receipts for internal accounting purposes—the difference being that this is for external use as well.
Field personnel can also call up outstanding invoices and quickly determine how many days out it is, whether for their own use or to show the client. Invoices are color coded: green for within 30 days, blue indicates 30-90 and red signifies more than 90 days.
“This will solve a lot of problems that are plaguing the oil and gas industry right now,” said Crawford. “It’s a full loop process, making it all digital.”
The next step will be for the program to accept a previously-authorized thumb print for payment approval in lieu of the company stamp, thereby digitizing the final step. This is one of the ways it will simplify procedures for clients as well.
“If I [the service company] have two invoices for the company man [and] there are actually seven, but I don’t have the other five [on paper]—now I do. They will be on the app,” Crawford said. “Now I can get them all signed off” at one sitting with the company man.
He hopes this will help more service companies stay in business. “With margins as low as they are, getting paid is the utmost priority. Money’s not free-falling anymore.
Crawford hopes the growing, technology-based efficiencies across the board, in the field, in the back office and in billing/receiving, combine to reduce the effects of the boom-bust cycle on all parties. If those efficiencies make oil profitable at lower and lower commodity prices, Crawford will see that dream fulfilled. STEM’s REAP software, SitePro’s IPC system and others will be keys to making the dream a reality.
Paul Wiseman is a freelance writer in Midland.