Work is fluid in the oil and gas industry and has many important functions that must be managed in the field efficiently to ensure optimal productivity. To do this effectively, it is best to use a good field service management software to help manage field resources and follow through on equipment maintenance and repair. FSM software can be used to manage work orders and create a database of the company’s raw materials, products, and various processes that are ongoing and upcoming for better oilfield management.
But just like with any industry, there are certain features best utilized in a solid FSM software to manage in accordance with their operational necessities. In the Oil and Gas industry, one must evaluate several features of the field service management software to ensure they get the most out of the application. The following is a list of such features.
The growing age of modernity has made things more and more remote. Having management software that can function on your mobile device is a great way to save time and effort when getting things done on the go. Technicians in the field will be able to access the necessary information to get the job done without the downtime of awaiting feedback from the back office on parts availability or job assignments. Back office personnel can quickly view updates per location and check the progress of maintenance tasks in real-time. This helps reduce or even eliminate approval time, work order assignments, reduces paperwork and allows the team to receive signatures necessary to proceed, all available directly through digital format on the mobile app.
Using field service management software for your oil and gas company should be able to help you with scheduling unplanned events and dispatching service members to the job site quickly when needed. This is an important aspect of the field service management software because it helps create a more efficient work environment for the back office and the field technicians helping save precious time and resources while improving the organization’s resource management.
The best field service management software in the oil and gas industry needs to have the best inventory of all resources, assets, technician status updates, and a list of responsibilities for all employees interfacing with the field if you wish to manage your oil and gas company effectively. Keeping track of the assets in the field and maintaining a maintenance log is essential to ensure best life cycle performance of the equipment and resources needed for the field service operations.
Equipment status includes the maintenance and repair history of replacement and serviced components as well as rental equipment and leasing contracts. Typically, this is logged by the technician in the field, turned into the back office, and then updated into a file where it will be archived and pulled when needed. This is a time-exhausting process that can be updated in real-time using the mobile application, immediately accessible by the back office and available for future reference at any time from anywhere with cloud storage using the right FSM.
IoT is the next best thing available with the internet. IoT or IIoT in the Industrial Internet of Things is a network that is connected to devices accessible via the world wide web at any time. IoT is the best way to check the status of equipment, monitor for preventive and predictive maintenance needs and proactively address issues before it leads to downtime, saving the company from major losses and allowing the technicians to do their jobs more efficiently without need for spare part orders. Field service management software that runs on IoT can be unstoppable in efficiency and ease of use.
In order to maintain equipment and avoid missing important checks along the way, the oilfield operators may have specific inspection criteria and checklists customized to each job. Having this functionality built into a field service management application and available to the technician via mobile app brings consistency and standardization to the technician’s quality of work, ensuring the oilfield operator’s expectations are met without question. Certain operations will require the utmost adherence to inspections checklists. With the inspection and task checklists your operations will meet the highest standards with ease.
Having to always obtain signatures and keep record of all the paperwork is tedious work and requires a lot of time and organization. This process is also very time consuming and often slows the production significantly, which is why paper contracts are simply a thing of the past. Your field service management software should be able to take paperless records and also have a digital signature function to allow for necessary record keeping and filing of agreements quickly and accurately.
When working in the oilfield on multiple work orders across multiple oilfields, it is important to make sure the invoicing and billing is being managed accordingly. There is a system of tracking all project costs and producing invoices that will be sent to the billing and accounting teams for processing. Signatures are often required to ensure job completion and work satisfaction to process these invoices without concern. The best field service management software will automate these tasks for you so that you can keep track with ease and integrate into the accounting software seamlessly.
The best field service management software would automatically make project reports giving you thorough analysis, and saving you a ton of time generating those reports in another software. This, in turn, saves you a ton of money in building out the reporting and making decisions based on the results with faster and easier access to the numbers that matter.
The best field service management software ensures that you have a steady and fluid workflow with tasks automatically being assigned and updated on the go. Every company has its own unique processes of operation that can be customized to fit the field service or the back office applications. In oil and gas, the flow of fluids may be the main objective but the workflow can also be set to the standards of the oilfield operators. Therefore, having the flexibility and capability to customize automated workflows is extremely beneficial to keeping things flowing at optimal speed.
If you can find a field service management software efficient in all the above 10 points, you have a great tool to manage your oil and gas field operations. FieldEquip is one such software provider that can make it all happen with ease and give you the best possible and most efficient experience there is.
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