Project Management software tools have paved their way into every industry. They help in effective project management through expert planning and coordination. Handling multiple projects at the same time is no cakewalk especially when they require organizations to deal with extreme complexities. Be it a small business, a market leader, a startup, or a decentralized team, the need for an effective channel of project management cannot be overlooked. This is why project management tools are becoming a necessity for successful project deliveries.
Importance of Project Management Software for the Oil and Gas Industry
This blog emphasizes the manifold advantages of project management software in the oil and gas industry. But first, let’s have an understanding of the scope of work of the oil and gas industry and the major challenges it faces.
The Oil and Gas Industry; its Challenges
The oil and gas industry is considered to be one of the biggest sectors in the world generating a high percentage of revenue to contribute to the world economy. Countries with major oil and gas companies are one of the driving factors of the nation’s GDP. However, the challenges and complexities of the industry are manifold.
The factors like a fiercely competitive market, diverse regulatory frameworks of different regions, and worsening climate change issues, add to growing complexities.
Some of the major challenges faced by the Oil and Gas industry are mentioned as under:
- The projects dealt in by such companies are more or less quite complex with very low success rates due to the absence of efficient project management procedures in place.
- Huge cost factor due to operating within volatile political, social, and economic environments.
- Around 805 of the workforce employed belong to the aged category, which is soon to retire. New employees mostly constitute young personnel not familiar with the techniques and facilities.
- Diverse regulatory and environmental guidelines put undue pressure to comply with the same amidst other pressures of project completion.
- The lack of effective communication tools across various levels slows down the workflow and also results in limited transparency.
How Does Project Management Software Improve Oil and Gas Industry Project Delivery?
A project management tool provides the following benefits to a company operating in the oil and gas sector:
Effective Team Communication and Easy File Sharing
One of the most important factors for successful project deliveries in the Oil and Gas sector is team collaboration. This industry works in three segments, namely, upstream, midstream, and downstream. The first stage involves the exploration of the product. The second stage deals with the transportation, storage, and processing of the product. While the last stage deals with filtering and purifying the product explored. Most oil and gas companies have their segments operating in different parts of the world.
Hence, there is a need for constant communication among the workers and the team to make sure everyone is on the same page.
With project management tools, teams can more easily collaborate on cross-functional work. With this, communication between workers engaged with the different parts of a project becomes seamless.
Everyone knows who to contact for a certain task. Also, with easy file-sharing features of project management software, everyone (with proper authority) have access to relevant files and the same can be located easily in a time of need.
Streamlined Processes and Operations
A project management software tool helps in streamlining the project management processes across different levels and sections. With accurate time logging features, a detailed record can be set out of the time spent on each task by each employee, which helps in better time management. With the help of project tracking, actual results can be compared with desired results in terms of time, cost, and performance. This ultimately helps in budget forecasting as well to keep the budgets under close check.
All of these help in streamlining every process associated with the project, thus increasing its success rate and improving delivery.
Improved Decision Making Through Analytics Tool
Taking delayed and faulty decisions in oil and gas projects are one of the reasons behind unsuccessful projects. Faulty decisions are a result of the inability of the workforce to analyze the issues and complexities involved with a project.
Further, oil and gas companies operate in physically challenging environments. Besides, the industry faces the risks of volatile market conditions due to many economic, social, and political factors. Hence, it becomes difficult to keep a check on the cost factor, which ultimately hampers the progress of a project.
Project management software’s analytics help to access different risks associated with a particular project, analyze its profitability, and provide insights into complex operations a company aims to undertake. The availability of vital information to project managers enables them to take timely decisions to avoid failures. It keeps a check on the cost too saving a company form major losses.
Resource Management
The oil and gas industry always faces a shortage of crucial resources (both human and physical), hence proper resource management is crucial for project profitability. Project management software, with the help of resource optimization techniques, helps in evaluating the entire resource pool of a company to plan for optimum utilization. The management can allocate the tasks as per the available resources and work out a balance in the workload amongst workers.
With proper resource management procedures in place, companies can distinguish the shortage of skills and do the needful to procure the same. It is highly important to identify the required resources for a project for they are the means to achieve it. The presence of excess resources will also be identified and appropriate measures can be taken to not invest more in the sane.
Benefits of Customizable Templates
Project management software systems provide customizable templates for different projects. They are nothing but project outlines that can be used to set up a project, the tasks associated with it, its files and reports, and save you from the burden of setting it up from scratch. You only need to make the necessary adjustments in the template to suit the requirements of your project.
Customizable templates provide the same starting point for everyone associated with the project thus preventing inconsistencies. They lower the risk of forgetting key aspects of the project, which is otherwise a big threat when you try to start a new project from scratch. Besides, it saves a great deal of effort and time on the part of the team to decide on the tasks, deliverables, and other requirements for setting up the project in the software.
Helps Companies in Staying Compliant
Another major challenge often faced by the oil and gas industry is a complex set of rules and guidelines laid down by various regulatory frameworks and statutory authorities at various levels. Most companies without proper legal guidance fail to comply with these regulations ending up in major trouble. Such situations act as a huge bottleneck in their operations and have a direct impact on project deliveries.
Project management software tools are up to date with applicable regulatory frameworks. They help in ensuring compliance with corporate standards as well as other government regulations to keep your company compliant.
Real-Time Notifications
Project management software keeps you updated with up-to-the-minute information on the project. It will also notify and remind users about any incident that needs to be corrected. There are many instances during the life of a project that certain drastic errors are missed from the attention of the human eye (even by experts). But nothing escapes from the careful scrutiny of a project management tool. Its timely reminders help management to adopt the corrective measures to prevent it from getting worse and affecting the project delivery. It will also suggest the best course of action to be taken in such circumstances.
Collaboration with Clients and Suppliers
To be able to collaborate with clients and suppliers from the same platform is essential to keep them updated with the real-time progress of a project. This way, clients will be able to provide important feedback and review the progress, which will serve useful in the final delivery of the project. Project management software provides a platform for facilitating such simultaneous collaboration with clients and suppliers, thus constantly keeping them in the loop.
