Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Integration of Lab Information and Plant Operations Assures Product Quality
Overview
Country or Region: India
Industry: Petroleum
Customer Profile
Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (BPCL) is among the top three petroleum refinery and marketing companies in India. BPCL produces petroleum products, petrochemicals, and specialty lubricants.
Business Situation
BPCL's priority was to enhance information flow from its Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), to provide users at its plant access to information on the status and quality of products processed at the plants.
Solution
BPCL's development partner ProcessBiz Technology used Microsoft® .NET technology to develop a browser-based interface to LIMS. The solution connected information from LIMS, an ERP system, and the manufacturing system, to enhance functionality and extend its usage into other areas.
Benefits
n Less development cost
n Reduced deployment time
n More flexibility for developers / "This provides flexibility to developers. For instance, a programmer specialized in other languages can choose to develop code in that language under the .NET Framework."
D. Srikumar, Senior Officer, IS - BPCL, Refinery
Executives at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), one of India's top three petroleum refinery and marketing companies, wanted to provide plant employees information on the status and quality of products processed. The new solution connects information from the laboratory, the enterprise resource planning system, and manufacturing system. The development team employed Microsoft® .NET technology to provide a browser-based interface to the system. Users now have secure access to it from any desktop system connected to the intranet. BPCL was able to reduce deployment and administration costs. Productivity of users increased by between 40 and 50 percent. BPCL was also able to minimize additional IT investments, and protect its investment on existing applications. Programming under the Microsoft .NET Framework allowed it to reduce development time by between 60 and 70 percent.
Situation
The market for petroleum products in India has become highly competitive, following deregulation of the oil sector. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) relies on a basic premise to guide its operations in this market—offering superior product quality is the key to profit growth. BPCL had implemented a laboratory information management system (LIMS) at its refinery in Mumbai, to provide its plant engineers greater control of the quality of products in process. The system enabled its plant engineers and process technicians to quickly reference laboratory information and thus optimize plant operations to maintain quality.
However, LIMS did not entirely meet the information requirements of users at the plant, or in the specific report formats that were desired. This adversely impacted the productive time of users at the plant. Also, employees across the organization did not have access to the system, although there were other areas where the system could potentially be of value. To provide more people access to the system, BPCL would have to incur the cost of additional software licenses.
BPCL's goal was to overcome these limitations, while taking advantage of its investment on the existing system. Another goal was to provide secure access to the system across the organization from any desktop connected to its wide area network.
Solution
For its manufacturing process and plant automation, BPCL had implemented a manufacturing execution system from Aspen Technologies of the United Kingdom. The manufacturing system covers areas such as oil accounting, production accounting, supply chain management of crude oil, and laboratory test information and approvals. In order to augment its LIMS functionality, BPCL implemented SampleManager, a LIMS solution from Thermo LabSystems, also of the United Kingdom, in consultation with Aspen Technologies.
BPCL uses SampleManager to capture profile information on samples from petroleum products produced at its plant, and to store and archive the results of sample analysis tests that are received from the laboratory. The results of sample analysis are automatically linked from SampleManager to a real-time database in the plant automation system. Users in the plant can access the information on their desktop systems using SampleManager's client software.
Web Interface to LIMS, a Knowledge Management Portal
The system makes available a rich repository of historical information and knowledge about product pattern and quality, by integrating information stored in LIMS and other core applications, such as SAP R/3 ERP and InfoPlus.21 (a module of the manufacturing execution system). The new system provides business intelligence analysis on product quality. It also gives management information system data on test results, and quality parameters for products manufactured in various BPCL plants. BPCL developers used Web technology to provide authorized users across the organization access to the system on its corporate intranet.
As a measure of customer care, the system prints a quality certificate of relevant products for each sale transaction. This feature is symbolic of BPCL's quality assurance for the products being delivered to its customers. For generating the quality certificate, product quality data from LIMS, along with invoice and customer details from the enterprise resource planning system, are extracted through the system.
In developing the Web interface to LIMS, the BPCL IT team has attempted to use technology to create an enriched information base for its users to help them make better decisions, and ensure customer loyalty through the issuance of quality certificates from the system.
.NET Framework Was Technology of Choice
The team decided to develop the solution with the development tools available in the Microsoft® .NET Framework—the Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET development system and Microsoft ASP.NET. BPCL technical staff evaluated other technologies, such as Java and Linux, before finalizing on the .NET Framework. They selected the Framework to develop this solution to minimize additional investment, and upgrade developer staff skills on the technology.
BPCL's IT managers view .NET as one of the technology choices for its plan to achieve communication between heterogeneous systems, integration of information between applications, standardization and security of program code, and reduction in system development and administration costs. "Over a period of time, we plan to selectively migrate critical areas of application development into .NET, such as production management, oil accounting, excise documentation, and scheduling," comments M.D. Agrawal, Chief Manager, Information Systems, BPCL Refinery. The features of .NET that he considers especially advantageous to BPCL are "...open architecture, meta data interface, support of thin technologies, use of object-oriented technology, better control of code, and built-in standards for integration of various platforms, such as XML-based Web services."
ProcessBiz Technology was chosen as the applications development partner for the project. The partner developed the solution using Windows® 2000 Advanced Server as the server operating system; SQL Server™ 2000 as the database server; and the Microsoft Visual Basic® .NET development system and ASP.NET as the application development environment.
Benefits
Competitive Edge
The solution has provided BPCL a technological basis for managing product quality. Due to the integration of information between core systems, BPCL's laboratory and plant are able to access, process, and act upon each other's information, to manage product quality at the plant. Online product quality certification at product delivery points supports BPCL's strategy of quality assurance to its customers.
Reduced Costs
BPCL's IT managers did not incur any software licensing cost, due to the choice of a browser interface for the new system. Additional IT investment was kept to a minimum. Investment in existing applications was also safeguarded, because SampleManager was retained at the back end.
The IT costs of maintenance and support for LIMS has decreased. Previously, IT staff, paid for by the laboratory, provided troubleshooting support, whenever users had problems accessing SampleManager at their desktop systems. BPCL software developers also had to use a proprietary programming language, to carry out modifications to SampleManager, which involved a training cost.
Now, BPCL's laboratory no longer has to incur the administrative costs of providing help desk support to other users.
Faster Development Enables Rapid Deployment
BPCL was able to deploy the system quickly. Development was faster due to a reduction in programming effort. According to D. Srikumar, Senior Officer, Information Systems, BPCL, Refinery, one of the reasons why development with ASP.NET is faster is its separation of functional and presentation code. He explains, "In a development environment, where these two aspects are mixed in the program, it becomes difficult to modify programs, in case changes have to be made in the way information is presented. Since, with ASP.NET, these code elements are separate, it is now possible to more easily make typical modifications."
Another factor was that user credential validation and acceptance was built into the development process itself, saving time.
Flexible Programming Environment
In the .NET Framework, a developer can choose a programming language of his or her choice, provided it is supported by .NET. "This provides flexibility to developers. For instance, a programmer specialized in other languages can choose to develop code in that language under the .NET Framework," says D. Srikumar.
Another major advantage for developers is the use of a common class across different programming languages. "Programmers need not remember a different class every time they use a different programming language," according to D. Srikumar.
Future Plans
BPCL plans to use the system to generate quality certificates for products at its delivery points in other supply locations. Also, BPCL plans to use this system as a prototype to develop similar systems in its other laboratories. It will capitalize on technology to enforce laboratory standards across the corporation.
The company also plans to build a knowledge base, based on information from the Laboratory Information Management System and the manufacturing execution system, to improve plant process knowledge within BPCL. The knowledge base will be an integral component of BPCL's plans to unite information from various core applications on a content management tier. The content management tier would serve as the foundation for BPCL to implement its targeted plan of providing real-time information and intelligence to its various departments.
M.D. Agrawal explains, "Eventually, our information systems architecture will have three levels. In the first level would be core application systems such as enterprise resource planning and the manufacturing execution system. The second level would be a content management layer containing information drawn out of the first layer, and the documents generated by various users. The third level would be a dashboard view of highly distilled, specific information that would help senior management in their decision-making process. This level would also assist key users across BPCL achieve their key performance indicators."
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