ERP for the oil & gas sector:
software & business value

ERP for the oil & gas sector: software & business value

September 5, 2023

Konstantin Pilkevich

by Konstantin Pilkevich,

Head of Itransition's ERP Center of Excellence

ERP for oil and gas integrates all relevant corporate data into a single repository to help companies from the oil and gas sector automate administrative processes, eliminate legacy workflow bottlenecks, and better manage oil exploration, production, refinery, distribution, and retail.

Itransition develops custom ERP software and tailors platform-based ERP solutions for upstream, midstream, downstream and oil field service providers, helping them reap the maximum benefit from adopting an ERP solution.

About Itransition

10+  years of experience in ERP services

50+ completed projects of different scales across various industries

Hands-on expertise in delivering out-of-the-box, custom, and hybrid ERP solutions

An Odoo Silver Partner

A NetSuite Solution Provider

ERP functionality for oil & gas

ERP functionality entirely depends on a company’s specific needs and goals. However, here are some common features that we enable within ERP solutions for our clients in the oil and gas sector.

ERP functionality for oil and gas

Maximize asset lifetime and performance across the entire asset lifecycle, prevent costly downtime, maintain regulatory compliance, and drive asset acquisition, operations and maintenance costs down.

  • Tracking of plants, facilities, and equipment
  • Location tracking
  • Real-time view of asset performance
  • Automatic alerts of asset status and health
  • Asset condition assessment
  • Condition-based asset maintenance
  • Failure analysis and prediction
  • Reliable lifespan and depreciation calculation
  • Allocation management
  • Rental management

Track project progress and manage human, physical and financial resources to deliver projects on time and minimize project cost overruns.

  • Project planning and scheduling
  • Project progress monitoring
  • Project costing
  • Billing and revenue management
  • Resource management
  • Project asset management
  • Time and labor
  • Contractor and subcontractor management
  • Service management
  • Project analytics

Accelerate exploration and production management to deliver products of high quality, correct quantity, at the right time and in the most cost-efficient way.

  • Production planning and scheduling
  • Multi-site production planning
  • Support of different manufacturing modes
  • Production order creation and routing
  • Lean, Kanban manufacturing
  • Manufacturing accounting
  • Work in progress tracking
  • Labor management
  • Risk management
  • Production forecasting

Keep track of production processes and get alerted of malfunctions and quality issues to handle them as soon as possible, minimizing defects and wastage as well as potential hazards to employees and the environment.

  • Nonconformance tracking and reporting
  • Compliance evaluations and auditing
  • Incident tracking and reporting
  • Corrective Actions/Preventive Actions (CAPA)
  • Risk assessment and management
  • Supplier and contractor management
  • Procurement control
  • Complete audit trail and documents control
  • Policies and strategies management
  • Contingency planning
  • Safe work practices
  • Stop Work Authority program
  • QA/QC

Maintain high market responsiveness, minimize supplier risks, and make smarter sourcing and procurement decisions all while maintaining high sustainability.

  • Inventory visibility across the supply chain
  • Inventory and warehouse management
  • Supplier relationship management
  • Procurement management
  • Transportation and logistics
  • Demand management
  • Contract management
  • Alerts and notifications
  • Risk mitigation
  • Supply chain analytics
  • Multi-site and multi-logistics inventory planning

Control the company’s finances to make cost-effective decisions, accurately predict revenue and expenses, reduce operating costs, and identify saving opportunities.

  • Accounting hub
  • Payables and receivables
  • Revenue management
  • Expense management
  • Fixed asset accounting
  • Complete audit trail
  • Financial performance tracking across multiple locations
  • Multi-entity consolidation and reporting
  • Maintaining compliance with international, regional and local standards
  • Multiple currencies management

Identify and predict the likelihood of negative outcomes, eliminate or reduce unacceptable levels of risk, and minimize costly and time-consuming mistakes.

  • Risks identification, assessment and prioritization
  • Alerts and notifications
  • Reporting and audits
  • Regulatory compliance
  • Issue management
  • Document management
  • Built-in analytics capabilities
  • Permission-based granular data access
  • Business continuity planning

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Common integrations for oil & gas ERP

ERP system integration allows oil and gas businesses to get a 360-degree, real-time view of business processes. Itransition uses custom and third-party integration solutions to help our clients synchronize data across their IT infrastructure.

Common integrations
CRM
IoT cloud
CMMS
HR management system
EDI
BI software
Communication tools

CRM

Integration of sales, marketing and customer service data into ERP helps oil and gas companies make smarter operational decisions and improve relationships with customers (more accurate quoting, lead times and shipment dates, dynamic pricing).

IoT cloud

Integrated data from IoT field devices helps oil and gas organizations have round-the-clock visibility into operational activities, run real-time analysis, and effectively streamline drilling, production and equipment maintenance.

Computerized maintenance management system (CMMS)

The CMMS integration with ERP contributes to streamlined equipment maintenance, purchase order creation, labor planning and scheduling.

HR management system

The HRM system integration streamlines demand-driven resource allocation and scheduling and helps automate employee performance management and payroll.

Electronic data exchange (EDI)

The ERP-EDI integration facilitates the secure exchange of electronic documents (purchase orders, invoices, shipping schedules) between petroleum-related trading partners and streamlines order fulfillment.

BI software

BI integration ensures employees get visibility into operational processes and facilitate fact-driven decision-making relying on tailored KPI dashboards, on-demand analytics capabilities, and interactive reporting.

Communication tools

Integration with business communication software enables streamlined information sharing and synchronization, making interdepartmental communication easier and more efficient.

Best off-the-shelf ERP software on the market

Key features
  • manufacturing management
  • production quality management
  • equipment and fleet management
  • repairs management
  • human resources management
  • project planning and controlling
  • procurement and subcontractor management
  • contact management
  • land acquisition and development
  • fleet management
  • inventory management
  • invoicing
  • purchase management
  • sales management
  • accounting and finance
  • CRM
Best for
  • small companies
  • mid-sized companies
Pricing
  • per user + per module or extension
Deployment
  • SaaS
  • PaaS
  • on-premises
Limitations
  • challenging to scale and maintain

Key features
  • finance management and accounting
  • human resources management
  • asset management
  • professional services automation
  • supply chain management
  • CRM, billing, sales order management
  • opportunity management
  • planning and budgeting
  • revenue recognition
Best for
  • companies of all sizes
Pricing
  • per user per month, depending on the functional modules and the number of users
Deployment
  • SaaS
Limitations
  • price hikes in the long run

Key features
  • production management
  • material requirements planning
  • advanced planning and scheduling
  • manufacturing management
  • product configurator
  • inventory management
  • sales order management
  • purchase order management
  • finance and reporting
  • distribution management
  • data collection and automation
  • mobile application
Best for
  • small companies
  • mid-sized companies
Pricing
  • monthly licensing fee + resource consumption fee
Deployment
  • SaaS
  • private cloud
Limitations
  • a steep learning curve
  • complicated pricing

Key features
  • financial management
  • asset management
  • project management
  • production management
  • quality management
  • job management
  • Kanban lean production
  • Lean manufacturing
  • planning and scheduling
  • mobile field service management
  • maintenance management
  • supply chain management
Best for
  • small organizations
  • mid-sized organizations
Pricing
  • per user and per month basis
Deployment
  • private and public cloud
  • on-premises multiple deployment options
Limitations
  • an emerging reseller network
  • complex implementation and customization

Key features
  • financial management
  • inbuilt budgeting and reporting
  • supply chain management
  • production and project management
  • customer relationship management
  • customer service and field service management
  • workforce planning and reporting
Best for
  • growing companies
  • large companies
Pricing
  • depends on the functional modules chosen and number of users
Deployment
  • SaaS
Limitations
  • the partner ecosystem is too wide

Choose the optimal tech stack for your ERP project with Itransition

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ERP benefits for the oil & gas industry

Efficient business process management

Tailored ERP platforms provide instant access to relevant business data for any authorized party, helping them manage core business processes more effectively.

Cost reduction

ERP implementation facilitates the automation of manual activities like production scheduling, inventory monitoring, invoicing, report generation, considerably reducing operational costs.

Complete financial control

An ERP system enables budget transparency for oil and gas companies, allowing them to manage key business processes, analyze overhead and optimize expenses, maintain compliance with legal requirements, and avoid costly penalties.

Improved project management

ERP gives control over project schedules, resources and costs and helps recognize project risks well in advance to devise contingency plans and ensure project execution without delays.

Adherence to regulations

Promoting business process standardization and visibility, ERP software helps oil and gas companies achieve their sustainability goals and maintain compliance with multiple health, safety and environmental regulations, laws, guidelines, and specifications.

ERP services we offer

We help oil and gas organizations choose the best enterprise resource planning technology for their project needs and implement it within the required time and budget. The scope of our advisory services may include some or all of the following activities:

    • Analysis of business needs and technology environment
    • ERP solution architecture design
    • ERP software selection
    • ERP strategy creation and roadmapping
    • ERP implementation support

    We implement an off-the-shelf ERP platform or custom ERP software, covering the entire project scope from business needs analysis to post-launch support:

      Oil & gas ERP systems: success factors

      Change management

      The introduction of a new technology like ERP requires redefining business processes, designing new roles and responsibilities, and key stakeholder and employee training.

      Mobile support

      Modern enterprise resource planning platforms should have mobile data and business process management capabilities to keep users informed on the go and foster collaboration across locations and time zones.

      Vast integration capabilities

      To streamline ERP integration with internal and external solutions and enable overall solution scalability, ERP systems should offer well-documented APIs, pre-built connectors, and standard interface protocols.

      AI-powered ERP

      The ability to pair the ERP platform with artificial intelligence and machine learning can facilitate faster business operations, automate time-consuming manual tasks, and minimize human intervention.

      Choose Itransition as your technology partner

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      FAQ about oil & gas ERP

      What is oil & gas ERP software?

      The oil and gas ERP platform integrates all the relevant business information into one central database to help companies simplify and automate daily work processes while managing oil exploration, production, refinery, distribution, and retail.

      What key features should you look for in the oil & gas ERP software?

      It's essential to start the ERP selection/development process with a comprehensive analysis of your company’s needs and requirements, which will dictate the functionality scope. Some features you may want to look for are financial management, production management, project management, supply chain management, quality control, and asset management.

      How much does an oil & gas ERP cost?

      The total cost of ERP solution ownership in the oil and gas industry depends on many factors:

      • Deployment mode (cloud-based, on-premises, hybrid)
      • Software licensing
      • Hardware-related costs for on-premises and hybrid solutions
      • Data management activities
      • Quality assurance procedures
      • On-going support and maintenance requirements
      • User training
      • Non-functional requirements (ERP system availability, security, scalability, maintainability, usability)

      Due to the abundance of ERP cost factors, any accurate estimates are possible only after careful business analysis, solution conceptualization, and project planning.

      How to choose the best ERP for oil & gas?

      When choosing an optimal technology fit for your ERP project, consider the following factors:

      • ERP scalability and flexibility
      • Implementation support
      • After-launch customer support
      • Architecture openness and integration capabilities
      • Deployment flexibility
      • Prioritized functional requirements and industry focus
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