Shaving off unnecessary features was an idea proposed by William Occam in the 15th century. Today, Occam's razor can still generate benefits.

Knowing how much pipe you have and where it is can be a big deal in a big company.

Houston-based Datamatix Inc. has developed a Web-based Materials Management System (MMS) for BP. MMS is a software application that manages the requirements, forecasting, procurement, receipt, inventory control, movement and transportation of tubular and non-tubular equipment. In addition to reducing operating costs by regulating excess inventory and controlling inventory loss, the MMS provides comprehensive information management with reports to assist managers in decision making. The user-friendly interface, tight security, activity tracking, audit trail and error tracking features make the system safe and easy to use.

MMS is a client/server application serving more than 30 users, with the capacity to serve many more. The database back-end, client front-end and business rules engine are built with Microsoft-based software development tools. The front-end has a uniform look and feel throughout the application, with a standard toolbar with familiar icons. There are numerous business rules embedded in the code, and the system is based on object-oriented programming techniques.

The major functions of MMS are to:

* define the well requirements and report them;
* forecast the tubular equipment needed after comparing the well requirements, material on order and current inventory;
* conduct the procurement process for tubulars from requisitions to purchase orders;
* receive equipment into inventory;
* move materials between the warehouse and the well; and
* adjust the material balance after transportation of the equipment.

Numerous modules

The functionality of MMS is captured in the various modules of the system.

Well requirements and forecasting. The well requirements module allows the user to create the well data, input the tubular requirements for the well and monitor the delivery of material to each well. The forecasting module compares the tubular requirements with the current inventory and the current requisitions or purchase orders and generates planned requisitions based on the results of the comparison.

Tubular procurement. The requisition lists the tubulars that need to be procured and the date they need to be delivered. Requisition items are then selected into requests for quotations (RFQs). Bids are solicited for each of the items in a RFQ. The bid responses are tabulated in the RFQ module. Winning bid responses are then selected as items of a purchase order (PO). Changes to an issued PO require the user to execute the change order process.

Tubular receiving, inventory. Tubular inventory can be brought into the system in three ways:

* receiving against a PO;
* receiving against a well return material transfer request (MTR); and
* "other receipts" for bringing material into the inventory that does not have a PO.

Tubular MTRs and material movement requests (MMR).The movement of tubular material from one location to another is recorded as an MTR, which can also be used to record the physical modification of existing tubular material. Transportation details for tubular materials in the MTR modules are recorded in the MMR module.

Non-tubular receiving. Procurement of non-tubular items is done outside the scope of MMS. However, receiving of non-tubular items into inventory, maintenance of the non-tubular inventory and movement of non-tubular items is handled within MMS. Non-tubular inventory is broadly classified into items that have a serial number ("serialized" items) and non-serialized items. Each of these types of inventory has its own module for recording receipts.

Inventory update. The inventory update module allows changes to certain fields that describe the inventory item. The specific location of the inventory item in the yard or well is also recorded in this module. Serialized items can be classified further as base units or attachments. This module also allows the user to define the relationships between the base units and the attachments.

Non-tubular MTRs. A difference between the MTR module for the tubular and non-tubular inventory is that in the non-tubular section wells are treated much like yards - as a storage location for inventory within the system from which inventory can still circulate. In the tubular section of MMS, once material is issued to a well it is removed from the system. The non-tubular MTR module also records transfer of material from a vendor to a yard or well, and from a yard or well to a customer. Changes in condition of an item based on inspection checks are also recorded here.

Non-tubular transaction history and reports. Sorting and incremental search features are available for the transaction history table. Filter conditions can be applied to the transaction history table and can be saved and reused. A detail view for a summary listing is provided. Various sort and filter options are provided for the non-tubular inventory, MTR and transaction history reports.

Good results

The MMS project for BP was very successful. The system created cost savings by increasing the efficiency of operations and enabling close monitoring and tracking of the procurement, inventory management and material movement processes. "MMS was a very stable application that needed almost no post-implementation support," said Taha Shipchandler, president of Datamatix.

Who is Datamatix?

Datamatix integrates Catamaran (a wireless application gateway), Worldox (a document management system), OfficeNet (an intranet development framework), and LearnPoint (an e-learning implementation application) to provide complete solutions to the oil and gas and petrochemical industries.
"We offer design and implementation of technical and engineering Web applications," Shipchandler said. "Our consultants are mostly software professionals with engineering backgrounds, so we have carved a niche as developers of technical software applications."
For more information, visit www.datamatix.com.



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