Apply Sørco
Apply Sørco, a Norwegian engineering company based in Stavanger, embraced new technologies to win contracts with big clients demanding lower costs.
Goals
- To win new contracts.
- To leverage their small size.
- To increase efficiency.
Challenges
- The existing training process was time-consuming.
- Major clients demanded substantially lower costs.
- There was an excessive amount of administrative work.
Results
- Up to 30% efficiency has been gained.
- Man-hours have been significantly reduced.
- They are more competitive than ever.
Apply Sørco Achieves 30% Efficiency Gain Thanks to Enhanced Technology Adoption
Stavanger, Norway – Apply Sørco is a leading international multi-discipline engineering company delivering services to the oil & gas industry, mainly on the Norwegian continental shelf. Headquartered in Stavanger, with offices in Bergen, Krakow and Hammerfest, Apply Sørco covers all project phases from concept development and studies to completion and commissioning, as well as operations, maintenance and modifications.
In the last few years Apply Sørco has secured large maintenance, modification and operations contracts with the oil & gas companies Statoil, Eni and Lundin. The company was established in 1979.
The Offshore Cost Challenge
A sharp fall in oil prices forced the offshore oil & gas companies to substantially cut costs across the whole spectrum of their business activities. As a result, subcontractors are now under pressure to reduce their prices. For engineering and service companies like Apply Sørco this means that they have to spend fewer man-hours per task. In 2014, the executive management team of Apply Sørco saw the beginning of serious changes in the oil & gas industry and they were clear that these changes would reshape the industry.
Time-Consuming Tasks
Apply Sørco’s major clients on the Norwegian continental shelf mandate their subcontractors to deliver data and information using AVEVA software, and the deliverables vary from client to client. While companies such as Statoil, a big organisation, perform a lot of engineering and design work in-house, many smaller companies rely more on external providers, like Apply Sørco.
AVEVA PDMS has been the standard design software for the oil & gas industry in the North Sea for years. In addition to PDMS, Apply Sørco used software packages for drawing, laser scanning, and support. The integration of these was not optimal, as it required numerous mouse-clicks, and the engineers had to switch between different software packages.
Finding the Right Direction
Having a smaller organisation than many of their competitors, Apply Sørco felt that they could make the oil industry‘s demand for lower costs work to their advantage. They tried to identify as quickly as possible where they could be more efficient, and one thing that appeared on the radar was software.
Because the company was already closely interacting with AVEVA, they decided to test AVEVA Everything3D on a small project, to identify efficiency savings.
The results provided the basis for Apply Sørco to start the migration process to AVEVA E3D, and implement new technology.
“From our calculations it was clear that we were onto something; that a change of software was the right direction for the company, even if it meant investment, training and new procedures.”
Mark Crombie
Discipline Authority 3D Admin at Apply Sørco
The E3D Experience
The efficiency savings were a driver for Apply Sørco to upgrade from PDMS to AVEVA E3D. But the transition was also cost-efficient, since the total licensing for the AVEVA E3D package is slightly lower than the sum of licences in the PDMS system.
The management decided to invest in AVEVA E3D in December 2014, and the company started implementing it in early 2015. Apply Sørco was the first company in Norway to run AVEVA E3D.
“We invested at a good time because these efficiency savings were starting to be demanded by our clients. So, this positioned us strategically and it has already helped us to win some of the new contracts.”
Mark Crombie
Discipline Authority 3D Admin at Apply Sørco
The AVEVA E3D solution implemented at Apply Sørco consists of four modules: Design, Draw, Laser Scanning, and Supports.
The Benefits: Huge Savings in Man-hours
Before starting the transition to new software, Apply Sørco measured how many man-hours they spent on each task in the engineering process. After having used AVEVA E3D for nearly two years the results have been remarkable.
Seamless Implementation
Crombie pointed out that AVEVA E3D is much easier to use than PDMS. The engineers need fewer mouse-clicks for the same tasks. Being more intuitive than their predecessors, the modules are much simpler to learn and implement. In addition, the modern look and feel will be more attractive to young engineers coming into the company.
Apply Sørco did not have a huge training budget, so a lot of their engineers learned by doing. In the first year they divided the work so that some engineers worked on PDMS while others worked on AVEVA E3D. In this way the company both met time targets and introduced the new system.
Crombie did not hide the fact that their engineers’ attitudes to new software differed widely. Some embraced the new technology right away, but others stuck to the system they knew, especially when they had strict deadlines. However, according to Mr. Crombie, the overall feedback from the engineers has been overwhelmingly positive.
“They were amazed at how easy it was to use. Now everyone works on AVEVA E3D, and we use the software on all of our projects.”
Mark Crombie
Discipline Authority 3D Admin at Apply Sørco
