Case Study - Atozed Software

2012
Case Study
Plataforma XXI
Plataforma XXI allowed ITG Management to control and monitor in real time
the quality and reliability of the inspections performed on the field by the
Inspection Body and ensured the financial control over all operations.
Bruno Cerqueira
CTO
Instituto Tecnológico do Gás
Case Study
Plataforma XXI
Contents
ITG .............................................................................................................................. 4
Mission & Vision............................................................................................................ 5
Our Vision: “To technically lead the complete value chain of oil derivatives” ................... 5
Our goals: ................................................................................................................ 6
Situation ....................................................................................................................... 6
Solution ....................................................................................................................... 7
Implementation ............................................................................................................. 8
Impact ......................................................................................................................... 8
Technology................................................................................................................. 10
Screens ...................................................................................................................... 11
Mobile Version ........................................................................................................ 11
Intraweb Mobile Application Login ......................................................................... 11
Main Screen ........................................................................................................ 11
Agenda – Work to do ........................................................................................... 12
Info on Work to do ............................................................................................... 12
Ex. screen #1 - data input .................................................................................... 12
Ex. screen #2 - data input .................................................................................... 12
Ex. screen #3 - data input .................................................................................... 13
Ex. screen #4 - data input .................................................................................... 13
Ex. screen #5 - data input .................................................................................... 13
Ex. screen #6 - data input .................................................................................... 13
Photo Upload Form .............................................................................................. 14
Inspection Result .................................................................................................. 14
Regular Web Version ............................................................................................... 15
Main Screen ........................................................................................................ 15
Export to Excel Query ........................................................................................... 15
E.S.P.’s Database Query ....................................................................................... 16
General Documentation Query ............................................................................. 17
Inspection Type I - General View - Page 2 .............................................................. 19
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Special Module I - Data Query Options ................................................................. 20
Special Module I - Data Query List Results .............................................................. 21
Special Module I – General Data Edit – Page 1 ...................................................... 22
Special Module I – General Data Edit – Page 2 ...................................................... 23
Special Module I – General Data View – Page 1 ..................................................... 24
Special Module I – General Data View – Page 2 ..................................................... 25
Special Module I – Sub Data Edit Example.............................................................. 26
Special Module I – Sub Data View Example ............................................................ 27
Special Module I – Timeline Example ..................................................................... 28
Special Module II – General Data View .................................................................. 29
Special Module II – Reports Management ............................................................... 30
Special Module II – Sub Data Edit – Page 1 ............................................................ 31
Special Module II – Sub Data View – Page 1........................................................... 32
Special Module II – Sub Data Edit – Page 2 ............................................................ 33
Special Module II – Sub Data View – Page 2........................................................... 34
References .................................................................................................................. 35
Legal ......................................................................................................................... 35
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ITG
Founded in 1976 by the Portuguese LPG distribution companies, ITG – Instituto Tecnológico
do Gás is a non-profit association. Inittially designated as APGPL – Associação Portuguesa
de Gases de Petróleo Liquefeitos (Portuguese LPG Association), has for mission the definition
of technical and safety rules applicable to gas utilization, support the national authorities in
the draft of regulations, assume the Portuguese representation in international standardization
committees, gather and distribute technical information among its associates and implement
training courses for the national LPG industry.
Soon after its foundation the companies Saaga, Eival and Petróleo Mecânica Alfa became
associates, shortly followed by Petrogal (National Oil Company). In 1977, Shell, BP, Gás
Flaga Portuguesa and several other companies related to the gas industry became associates
of APGPL.
In that same year became a full member of AEGPL – LPG European Association, which
allowed the enrichment of technical knowledge through the participation in several
international technical boards and specialized training of its Engineers and technical
personnel across Europe and the United States of America.
In 1980, APGPL is given the status of entity of public service by the Portuguese government as
recognition for its meritorious services to the country. During this year Comanor and the
formerly known Petroquímica e Gás de Portugal become new associates.
Pursuing its development policy, in 1982 received as new members EDP/CRGE and Mobil
while becoming a member of IGU – International Gas Union and Marcogaz – Technical
Association of the European Natural Gas Industry.
With the implementation of the Natural Gas project in Portugal in 1984, the association
changed its name to APGC – Associação Portuguesa dos Gases (Portuguese Association of
Combustible Gases) in order to encompass and address the needs of all its associates,
ranging from LPG to Natural Gas.
From 1989 to 1994, APGC welcomed as associates all the national Natural Gas companies,
resulting in a total of 31 associates, representing the full spectrum of the Portuguese gas
industry.
In 1992 the association takes on the new name of APGC/ITG – Associação Portuguesa dos
Gases Combustíveis/Instituto Tecnológico do Gás and celebrates several cooperation
agreements with the national industrial engineering and technology institute INETI – Instituto
Nacional de Engenharia e Tecnologia Industrial and several universities like ISEL – Instituto
Superior de Engenharia and IST – Instituto Superior Técnico, in order to boost its R&D
capabilities.
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Given its experience and recognized competence, the association is appointed, in 1993, as
the official Portuguese representative in the IEA International Centre for Gas Technology
Information - ICGTI.
Finally in 1997, after several statutory changes, assumes the name that holds up to this day,
ITG – Instituto Tecnológico do Gás.
In 2009, ITG gathers 34 associates, covering all types of oil derivatives, ranging from
Refining, Transmission, Storage, Distribution, Manufacture, Commercialization and
Laboratories to Research and Development.
ITG gathers several Engineering expertizes and its staff is constituded by Mechanical
Engineers, Industrial Engineers, Civil Engineers, Chemical Engineers, among others.
Additionally our senior management is proficient in Economics and Finance, with particular
insight on the Energy market, providing our costumers a solid and competent multidisciplinary
team that seeks the complete fulfilement of their needs.
Mission & Vision
Our Vision: “To technically lead the complete value chain of oil derivatives”
To provide support to all oil and gas industries, concerning the resolution of
problems of technical and technologic nature;
To conduct several technical and technologic studies, related with the development
of the oil and gas activity and cooperate with investigation organisms, Universities and
R&D companies;
To conduct tests and laboratory analysis of raw materials, products and
equipments;
To certify the compliancy of installations, equipments and products with the
applicable specifications and standards, as well with European and national
regulations;
To support and elaborate standards in the oil and gas sector, safeguarding its
associates expectations;
To design and implement Quality assurance programs;
To promote the transfer of technologies, to increase the value of technicians,
industries and oil and gas operators.
Provide training and support to industry experts;
Create and maintain a documentation centre and promote the dissemination of
information on technical and scientific activities, nationally and internationally.
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Our goals:
To provide adequate services to our clients needs, fulfilling all applicable
regulatory and standards requirements, bearing in mind the mitigation of any
environmental impacts that can be reasonably foreseen;
To provide excellent service;
To enforce very high levels of safety in all the services provided;
To develop and implement new methodologies, reliable and environment friendly;
To value our Human Resources and promote their development;
To honour all our commitments;
To contribute to the development of the Society.
ITG is a gas inspection body and supervisory authority for gas transmission networks, gas
storage facilities, gas distribution networks, gas service lines, and gas installations since
1976. ITG is the first accredited inspection body in Portugal for the gas and fuel sectors.
Situation
Along the years ITG faced several key issues that impaired steady growth and reliability of
operations as well as a poor marketing policy, namely:
1. Stand alone management control systems for each branch, based on outdated
technology (Excel) or paper records;
2. Lack of adequate communication between the financial department and the technical
department;
3. Heavy quality management system with traceability difficulties;
4. Ineffective inspection scheduling system;
5. Excessive response time to client due to ineffective inspection scheduling system;
6. Overload of administrative work;
7. Considerable delay in inspection certificates validation and issue to client;
8. Traceability issues in processes composed by more than one inspection to the same
client.
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Therefore there was an urgent need to develop a unique platform, accessible to all ITG
personnel, where all the information regarding an inspection could be stored for the legal
required time period.
As such, ITG first developed an application, designed to run on a PC Desktop, in order to
manage all the operations carried out by the field inspectors. Despite using a virtual agenda
to schedule inspections, this solution didn’t solve all the key issues identified earlier. The field
inspectors still recorded the data on a paper template that had to be later on transposed to
the system by the administrative staff, meaning that the same data had to be processed by
two people at different times, the field inspector and a secretary.
The next step to overcome this issue was clear:
a system that worked in real time was
needed, running on browsers of mobile devices such as smartphones. Apart from the
availability of data in real time it also would have to deal with the reliability and technical
consistency of the data inputted by the field inspectors. This system would have to
automatically validate the data from the inspectors through a complete set of preset rules,
and generate alerts whenever incoherence with those rules was detected, providing
immediately the inspection result. All this had to be done with low bandwidth and the data
and consequent inspection result should be available to the back office in real time.
To reduce time to market the client should also have a Web access to view the relevant
information regarding its inspection through a PC Desktop based browser.
Solution
The development of the solution was led by the IT department in close partnership with the
financial, technical and quality management departments.
IntraWeb allowed ITG to easily migrate several modules of its platform to a web version that
can be accessible worldwide without the need of additional software installation on client
machines. Also, complicated network VPN’s for database connections have been discarded
with this approach.
Because it’s a web solution that’s automatically deployed using the Internet, upgrades are
painless since a single server update gets the job done for all connecting users; no
installation changes are necessary on any client machines.
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The system worked well in both low bandwidth (mobile version) and regular bandwidth
situations.
Web version connected users can perform innumerous different tasks according to their
access level.
Implementation
The “Plataforma XXI” consists of over 20 screens on Mobile version, and around 100 screens
on regular web version. On the mobile version field inspectors have access to their daily
schedule of interventions, login on the mobile version links the technician to its agenda, from
there they are guided through several intelligent and active pages generated by the web
application that literally pinpoints the exact areas they must observe and collect data from,
based on the input from that particular session and the scheduled intervention type.
The mobile application validates all types of information the field inspectors input and
generate several alerts to the end user regarding possible user mistakes and dangerous
physical conditions on site.
On conclusion the user can take several photos with the smartphone/tablet and upload them
to be linked with the current intervention; also the system analyses all inputted data and by
the use of over a hundred rules and formulas compiled on the application, the final report is
produced.
From the regular web application, the back office has real time access to all field operation
inputs, schedule compliance, operations statistics, inspection related documentation and
server created PDF files of all sorts.
Some high level engineering inspections have their one special modules. Those enable full
cycle cover over these special operations, providing a great help to centralized operations
management.
These modules contribute now for an official and centralized set of Natural Gas & LPG
documentation and historical information that can be used by the industry.
Impact
This integration became an immediate success, allowing full control of all the operations
undertaken across the country and in real time. Apart from resolving all the key issues
previously identified, this solution allowed for a substantial cost reduction in operations.
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The main advantages to ITG after the full implementation of Plataforma XXI were:
1. Full control over all operations
Single platform, national wide, generating sequential process numbers
independently of the branch of origin;
Financial control over all operations – automatic check between work done
and money received, with the automated generation of all accounting
documents;
Immediate identification of work to be billed.
2. Productivity increase by automating several steps
Better resource allocation;
Reduction of time to market of the final documentation.
3. Better organization
Substantial reduction of physical archive space (documents generated by
operations stored digitally; only the strictly necessary paperwork is stored in the
physical process file);
Data repository, exportable to Excel, allowing for its treatment and obtain
statistical indicators;
Automatic interconnection between the financial department and the technical
department.
4. Cost reduction
Massive reduction on paper costs – most documents are now digital;
Adoption of digital signature allowed for regular mail cost reduction –
documents sent to clients by email;
Reduction of the number of administrative workers due to the automation of
several steps of the process.
5. Consolidation as market leaders
Ease of access to the information by the clients is a positive differentiator
regarding competitors.
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6. Marketing boost and image refresh
Connotation to technological advance;
Fast and reliable service;
New and modern document layout.
7. Standardization of inspection procedures
The preset rules included in the system provide strict boundaries that guide the
performance of the field inspectors reducing mistakes and incoherencies when
inputting data.
Technology
Mobile Version:
Tools: Atozed IntraWeb 9, Embarcadero Delphi 2007 Enterprise, Windows 2003 Server
Number of Users: 100
Number of Developers: 1
Time to Develop: 3 months
Regular Web Version:
Tools: Atozed IntraWeb XI, TMS Intraweb Pack, Embarcadero RAD XE , Windows 2003 Server
Number of Users: 100-200
Number of Developers: 1
Time to Develop: 4 months
Developer: Bruno Cerqueira
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Screens
Mobile Version
Intraweb Mobile Application Login
Main Screen
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Agenda – Work to do
Info on Work to do
Ex. screen #1 - data input
Ex. screen #2 - data input
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Ex. screen #3 - data input
Ex. screen #4 - data input
Ex. screen #5 - data input
Ex. screen #6 - data input
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Photo Upload Form
Inspection Result
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Regular Web Version
Main Screen
Export to Excel Query
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E.S.P.’s Database Query
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General Documentation Query
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Inspection Type I - General View - Page 1
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Inspection Type I - General View - Page 2
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Special Module I - Data Query Options
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Special Module I - Data Query List Results
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Special Module I – General Data Edit – Page 1
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Special Module I – General Data Edit – Page 2
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Special Module I – General Data View – Page 1
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Special Module I – General Data View – Page 2
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Special Module I – Sub Data Edit Example
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Special Module I – Sub Data View Example
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Special Module I – Timeline Example
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Special Module II – General Data View
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Special Module II – Reports Management
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Special Module II – Sub Data Edit – Page 1
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Special Module II – Sub Data View – Page 1
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Special Module II – Sub Data Edit – Page 2
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Special Module II – Sub Data View – Page 2
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References
ITG – Instituto Tecnológico do Gás : www.itg.pt
Atozed Software - Intraweb : http://www.atozed.com/intraWeb/index.en.aspx
Embarcadero : http://www.embarcadero.com/
TMS Software : http://www.tmssoftware.com/site/default.asp
Legal
Plataforma XXI – “O Futuro Hoje” is a registered brand name, registered at INPI (Instituto
Nacional da propriedade Industrial) with process #464882.
Plataforma XXI software is protected by law and have all rights reserved by ITG on ASSOFT
(Associação Portuguesa de Software) with process #1856/D/12.
All logos displayed on this paper are property of the companies they represent.
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