For many of us, purchasing consumable goods, appliances, and clothing through the internet has become the quickest and most efficient way to obtain these commodities, but for many remote offshore oil and natural gas drilling crews, ordering supplies, equipment, and food via the internet is not an option. Many of these crews must rely on fax machines or postal services to place orders and then must wait several days for the purchase order to be processed. Well, the lyrics from Bob Dylan's song say it best: "The times, they are a-changin'." Now, for many of these remote operations, ordering supplies via the internet is only a "double-click" away.
Intelisys Electronic Commerce Inc., a global provider of internet-based business-to-business procurement solutions, recently enabled the crews of the Western Legend and Western Regent seismic vessels-operated by Western Geophysical, the seismic division of Baker Hughes-to make the first live purchase orders over the internet at sea. The crews used a regular desktop browser, a satellite hook-up, and Intelisys' e-commerce solution, IEC-Enterprise-a purchasing system that allows employees to link directly to preferred suppliers' catalogs to order supplies.
Buying simplified
IEC-Enterprise enables employees to browse through preferred supplier product catalogs and select items to purchase. Built-in controls ensure that only authorized employees purchase from designated suppliers at negotiated prices and stay within budget. Upon selection, the system automatically validates an employee's spending constraints and then securely sends purchase orders to preferred suppliers via the internet.
Western Geophysical chose Intelisys' IEC-Enterprise for its ability to link buyers directly to suppliers and automate the entire purchasing process internationally. IEC-Enterprise also automates the procure-to-pay cycle, including product selection, requisitioning, approval, ordering, fulfillment, delivery, and financial settlement, enabling employees to make purchases anywhere in the world.
Nearly 400 Western Geophysical company employees use Intelisys' IEC-Enterprise to purchase goods and services from suppliers that represent 60% of the company's total nonproduction commodity spending.
Worldwide duplication
The at-sea initiatives mark the 24th worldwide installation of IEC-Enterprise by Western Geophysical, including its Houston headquarters and 11 field offices in the US, UK, Australia, Singapore, and the UAE. Twelve more Western Geophysical ships have made purchases at sea via the Intelisys system in locations off the coast of Africa, Canada, in the Gulf of Mexico, and various other areas.
The internet is now reaching the remotest locations and allowing industry personnel to save time and money through instantaneous order placement.
Offshore, WOW always has meant "waiting on weather." Now it may typify an offshore worker's response to a wait that's been dramatically reduced.
