In October, Accenture and SAP announced their collaboration to develop the next generation of predictive analytics solutions for asset management in the utilities industry to enable condition-based maintenance.
The cloud-based systems will be built on SAP's 4HANA platform to hydrocarbon supply chain and upstream production optimisation, and ultimately improve the bottom line for operators by reducing risks and costs and by increasing upstream production and downstream operating margins.
The Connected Hydrocarbons Logistics (CHL) solution will provide real-time total inventory of oil and gas companies' hydrocarbon supply chain.
Cloud networking will connect companies with suppliers and partners, optimising hydrocarbon supply chain movements, visibility into secondary costs, and reducing working capital.
"Using the latest SAP technologies such as SAP S/4HANA software and SAP HANA Cloud Platform, along with the role-based SAP Fiori user experience, CHL will complement and enhance the capabilities of SAP for Oil and Gas industry solutions and other SAP solutions with end-to-end visibility with real-time analytics and improved supply and demand planning," the pair said in a statement.
Accenture and SAP will also expand their upstream production operations collaboration which provides solutions and services supporting the upstream operations value chain including Upstream Operations Management, SAP UOM, and Accenture's rapid deployment upstream SAP S/4HANA template, Accenture Upstream Direct.
The SAP predictive maintenance and service solution is also being extended to provide early identification of potential asset performance issues, enabling upstream operators to enhance production volumes while reducing maintenance costs and planning.
"The hydrocarbon value chain is at the heart of the downstream business, and today's fragmented and often outdated IT landscape prevents oil and gas companies from unlocking all of the available value," Accenture managing director Andrew Smart said.
"We look forward to working with SAP and our clients to use CHL to unlock this value by better managing changes in supply, demand and commodity prices. Similarly, the new predictive maintenance tool from SAP can help operators further enhance upstream operations, in an environment of sustained oil price volatility."
SAP global vice president, oil and gas industry Ken Evans said the expanded program would deliver two key digital capabilities that customers were demanding: a real-time view of all product inventories and the ability to predict asset failures and prescribe their best sequence of repair.
"Our digital readiness survey confirms that while over 80% of the industry sees these capabilities as important, less than 5% have either of them today," Evans said.
"Our collaboration with Accenture expands the portfolio of solutions delivering such digital transformations to the oil and gas industry."
