Challenges

• Improve access speeds and performance of a hydrocarbon, accounting-management module, developed 10 years ago with Oracle Forms, that is used by 20 financial and shipping managers to track and report on all activities in the production, processing, and transportation of oil and gas products at the Grangemouth, Scotland refinery
• Eliminate latency problems with the Oracle Forms-based, refinery-information management module used by 120 chemists, planners, laboratory teams, and terminal managers, to optimize refining, blending, and to control production of hydrocarbon products
• Enable teams, who rely on accurate, timely business-critical hydrocarbon accounting and refinery data for strategic decision-making, to refresh screens dynamically, gain nearly-instant search results, and generate reports in seconds
• Add new search and reporting capabilities, as required to support executives’ abilities to make cost-effective business decisions and reduce risks of financial loss in the highly competitive oil and gas market
• Enhance modules with interactive, feature-rich capabilities, in line with user needs and without the cost of writing new code
• Gain the ability to exchange information electronically with a third-party plant information system, that captures and stores manufacturing data, and extracts data for document creation in Microsoft Reporting Services, without building interfaces

Solutions

• Rebuilt the Oracle Forms-based hydrocarbon accounting and refinery information management modules using Oracle Application Express, a Web browser-based tool for the rapid development and deployment of intuitive, professional applications, available as a fully supported, no-cost option to all Oracle Database customers
• Used the Web application development capabilities in Oracle Application Express to re-use existing software code in Oracle Forms and avoid the need to recreate sophisticated calculation and aggregation engines
• Completed the rebuild at an estimated 20% of the cost and time for using free-of-charge, off-the-shelf, or industry-specific solutions offered by competitors
• Benefited from ease-of-use and intuitive functionality of the new solution, named Electronic Refinery Information Management System (ERIMS), to minimize the need for training and to make nontechnical users productive immediately
• Cut the typical screen-refresh time from three minutes to five seconds, improving user productivity
• Accelerated search capabilities, enabling ERIMS users to locate information on hydrocarbon movements, laboratory results, and refinery volumes significantly faster
• Reduced average time to generate a report from up to four hours to approximately 30 seconds, which enabled decision-makers to assess impact of delayed shipments on cash flow and help avoid penalty charges for late deliveries
• Benefited from Oracle Application Express’s development wizards, drag-and drop functionality, and plug-ins to extend functionality of ERIMS modules in line with business needs
• Created new capabilities and built new solutions using existing metadata, without the cost of compiling and maintaining new code, and delivered new functionality in hours, a process that had taken several developer-days using Oracle Forms
• Used the Oracle Application Express Team Development Module to enable end-users to provide feedback and suggestions for new enhancements to the development team
• Used powerful security features in Oracle Application Express, such as role-based access and built-in usage tracking, to simplify management of user access rights, ensure fine-grained security policies, and enforce compliance with corporate, change-management processes
• Leveraged industry-standard tools in Oracle Application Express to interface with industry-standard plant information to extract real-time data from refinery metering systems for informed scheduling, manufacturing, and shipment decisions
• Extracted refinery order and delivery data on a daily basis from ERIMS to Microsoft Reporting Services to create legal documents, such as invoices and bills of lading
• Used open standards and out-of-the-box interfaces in Oracle Application Express to integrate ERIMS with 12 other solutions from Microsoft, SAP ERP Financials, and other third-party vendor solutions
• Began evaluating interactive reporting services of Oracle Application Express to enable users to view or download data for analysis as a replacement for Microsoft Excel
• Shared knowledge, expertise, and best practices on Oracle Application Express with other INEOS refineries and manufacturing plants that continue to run applications built on Oracle Forms and need to guarantee their abilities to handle future business needs

Why Oracle

INEOS evaluated a number of alternate technologies including ASP.Net and free-of-charge tools for building ERIMS, but Oracle Application Express was more powerful than competitor tools and offered a lower total cost of ownership.

“I attended an Oracle User Group workshop that demonstrated how quickly, simply, and inexpensively Oracle Application Express builds enterprise-level applications. It immediately became the obvious solution for us, and I would recommend it to other Oracle Forms users,” said Roz Shields, United Kingdom application manager, INEOS Group AG.

Partner

Oracle partner Inoapps carried out the rebuild of INEOS Group’s hydrocarbon accounting and refinery information management modules. Inoapps managed the entire process from validating business requirements through prototype building, user acceptance testing, user training, and post-go-live support.

Inoapps’ knowledge transfer is helping INEOS Group’s IT team become self-sufficient in maintaining and enhancing ERIMS, as well as sharing best practices with other group sites.

“Inoapps has extensive experience in building enterprise-class solutions using Oracle Application Express, and it delivered the solution to ERIMS on time and on budget. The company built us a robust, extendable tool with the power and scalability to meet current and future business challenges,” Shields said.

“We built ERIMS in 400 developer days with Oracle Application Express. Using a free-of-charge competitor tool such as ASP.Net would have taken around 2,000 days and cost five times as much. For companies with existing Oracle Forms-based solutions, there is no better way to go than Oracle Application Express for migrating to a robust, scalable, and future-proof platform,” said Dermot Murray, vice president, technology, Inoapps.