Revolutionizing Standards Management with AI 

By Courtney Antolik, Oil and Gas Industry Expert, Accuris

Engineers in the oil and gas industry must keep track of an enormous amount of information: internal processes, industry standards, licenses, permits, field data, governmental regulations and more. Keeping this information organized is critical for completing projects on time and in compliance. Engineering groups typically work with large, multi-functional teams spread across different geographies and collaborate with external consultants, vendors, and regulatory bodies. Sharing information across these groups, who may not have easy access to internal documents, adds another layer of complexity.

Overcoming collaboration hurdles in a global company

Engineers at Sasol, a South Africa-based global chemicals and energy company, deal with this challenge every day. The company has facilities around the world and works with numerous engineering contractors and suppliers. To ensure effective collaboration with consultants and suppliers, and to comply with South African maintenance regulations, Sasol must share all relevant internal company standards with their suppliers and contractors during onboarding.

For years, Sasol did this manually by delivering CDs with PDFs of standards to all consultants and suppliers involved in a project. However, there are several drawbacks to this approach:

• Manually distributing standards to a large team of consultants and suppliers takes weeks or even months
• Static PDFs are not updated when a standard is changed, so external partners may be using outdated information
• Researching citations and references within internal standards is time-consuming and prone to errors
• There is no way to trace document usage or guarantee data security

This method of managing standards leads to communication errors, redundancies, data security concerns and project delays. With so many contractors and suppliers operating under various company policies and processes, Sasol needed a tool to ensure consistent, accurate information sharing and management.

Streamlining standards management

Sasol had used Accuris' Engineering Workbench for more than 25 years, but still needed an efficient, secure way to share internal company standards with external partners. Accuris’ Internal Standards Solutions (ISS) turned out to be the ideal tool to facilitate this. ISS consolidates internal and industry standards into a secure platform that enables traceable, real-time document sharing with third parties.

ISS and EWB address many of Sasol’s data-sharing challenges:

• Internal and external engineers use shared project folders, ensuring that everyone involved has instant access to the most current information
• Users can annotate and comment on internal standards, making it easy to ask and answer questions
• The AI-powered search tools in Engineering Workbench eliminate the need to manually research citations and references
• Documents are securely stored and usage is traceable on the shared platform

After implementing ISS, Sasol saw a 90% increase in functionality compared to their previous standards management tools. Tasks that once took weeks or months, like sharing data with suppliers or researching references, can now be completed in minutes. Improved communication enhances accuracy and consistency while decreasing the risk for errors and project delays.

Robust standards management systems and AI-powered search tools can transform your business. Learn more today about our solutions for the oil and gas business.