An article was recently released in OilPro called Big Data and the Oilfield: Missing the Point by Steve Matthews. The premise was that so many companies are focused on collecting as much data as possible, that not enough focus is put on making the data actionable. We couldn’t agree more! Nearly every product at the terminal provides some form of raw data. Companies either collect the data and do nothing with it or spend hours trying to work it into a format that shows a clear picture.
The terminal industry is tired of feeling like they’re in the dark about their own businesses. They’re looking for ways to make decisions for the future. But in an industry that’s so risk averse, they need clear data to back up any high impact moves. In fact, many companies are so frustrated, they’ve implemented their own in-house programs in an attempt to solve this million dollar problem. However, they’re still only able to get a surface level of information, focusing more on transactional data than the behavioral and operational root.
Despite this obvious gap, Toptech Systems is still the only company that has built a real, industry-wide solution. Synetics goes way past simply giving raw data. Using TMS6, it actually collects the raw data from several different devices to provide analytics like average wait times, load times, gate-to-gate times, number of alarms, bay utilization and more in a format that’s truly actionable.
For example, rather than simply telling you that loading times have been much longer for a specific bay, you are able to drill down and view the bay’s performance for the past year. In doing that, you notice loading times are longer every Thursday for the last 4 months. What’s changed? You can drill down further and find that it performs efficiently until about 2 pm. You drill down more. That’s when the drivers from Reba’s Trucks arrive and you can see they tend to load only one compartment at a time. With Synetics, this discovery took you all of 5 minutes. Now you have the knowledge you need to make a decision about training their drivers to load more efficiently, thus offering better service to your customers by helping them receive their product faster.
Synetics allows companies to become detectives, quickly drilling down to the root of a problem. It also allows companies to be smart forecasters, viewing clear trends throughout their business so they can make major decisions for the future. It’s time for the industry to think beyond data dumps and focus on actionable intel.
