Operations Management Module, Part II
Oracle
People, Ideas & Objects have selected Oracle as the base Information Technology provider of the Preliminary Specification. Using Oracle Cloud ERP as the foundation, with all of their underlying technologies, which holds the premier spot in terms of enterprise technology providers. Oracle recently began moving towards heavily automating the processes to build substantial value for organizations throughout the business world. Taking advantage of their comprehensive solutions to partner with J.P. Morgan Chase to use their credit card in the recording of corporate expenses throughout the expense reporting process. When an employee uses this credit card they can designate the charges destination and Oracle will process it to ensure it fits within the companies eligibility policies. The individual will not have to spend the many hours filling out expense reports. Others won’t need to review them and the payment of charges will be handled appropriately. Eliminating the many thousands of hours consumed in the yearly process of expense reporting to a few milliseconds of processor time. Additional process automations are being undertaken for logistics with providers in those industries.
These automations will be comprehensive in nature and will build upon themselves as users realize the combinations and permutations of the various processes and how they’re related. The value earned by those firms that are able to move to this architecture and organize themselves in this manner will be able to reap substantial rewards in performance, productivity and profitability.
This is the same undertaking that People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service provider organizations are conducting with the development and implementation of the Preliminary Specification. The difference between what we are proposing with the Preliminary Specification and what Oracle are doing is they are providing the generic business processes and we are proposing to tackle the North American producers specific oil & gas attributes. Having the full stack of unique oil & gas and generic business process automation being handled and constantly iterated upon for the purpose of enhanced productivity and profitability.
People, Ideas & Objects et al have targeted the North American oil & gas producers as the market for our Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas software and service. We have further defined this market to include Exxon Mobil and Chevron down to the startup that began at the breakfast table this morning. This appears to be an impossible and misguided ambition when we consider that Oracle Cloud ERP and their underlying technologies are amongst the most comprehensive and technically difficult Information Technologies to support and use. Which we would agree. However we would note that the configuration of our user community and their service provider organizations provide the software and services to support the producers. We would ask under the basis of this configuration, what would preclude the small startup oil & gas organization from realizing the benefits of using People, Ideas & Objects for the management of their expense reporting with the Oracle / J.P. Morgan Chase credit card integration we just highlighted?
Such was the theme that was evident and became abundantly clear during Oracles CloudWorld 2022 conference. It was there they unveiled the comprehensive nature of their offering and the drive to move in this direction. A drive that has prompted this rewrite of the Preliminary Specification and the inclusion of the Operations Management module. People, Ideas & Objects believes that the promise of Information Technology has never been fulfilled as a result of the lack of maturity in the underlying base of the technologies. Oracle has worked diligently since its founding to put that architecture together and to make it robust. And are now able to turn it towards what everyone expected Information Technology to provide. It would be a shame for those companies that have become disenchanted with Facebook to believe that Information Technology is a false promise and will never deliver. Now is not the time to question the technologies but to understand the time that we are in and to act.
Oracle CloudWorld 2022
Being bold is the way to win, that being timid could wipe you out.
- Safra Catz, CEO Oracle
End to end transformation is another common theme that I frequently saw throughout this conference. What purpose would it make to trim around the edges and try to resolve what are truly existential issues to the oil & gas organizational methodology used today. One of the many points that this conference reflected is that now is the time to act. Bold action at this point will enable organizations to realize the benefits of the disruption from Information Technology. It was stated in Safra Catz’s Keynote Presentation that it is not the time to issue a White Paper. In my self-interest, I see this as the time necessary to evaluate options will be too costly in terms of the long lead times to consider the opportunities and research the issues have passed. The time to implement a “plan” is now. The Producer's plan needs to be bold, it needs to address the issues that are causing significant difficulties throughout the greater oil & gas economy in North America. The plan needs to address the existential issues that challenge the current method of producer organization, the one that has summarily failed, has no support or future. And the only plan available is the one from Oracle, People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service provider organizations in the form of the Preliminary Specification.
Oracle is the Premier, Tier 1 ERP Provider
What has been difficult to express in the Preliminary Specification is the robust platform that it is built upon. Oracle Cloud ERP is the premier tier 1 ERP solution in the marketplace. Which is easy to state and difficult to understand if you’ve never seen it in action. The nature of their product, the maturity of their technology and that easy to use Redwood interface has to be seen to understand that it is People, Ideas & Objects et al purpose to stand on the shoulders of this absolute giant. This referenced url will take you to Oracle’s Best Practice Demo Series where you can select a number of different videos to gain a basic understanding of the quality, fit and feel of Oracle Cloud ERP. I can not recommend highly enough that everyone should view the “Simplify Your Month-End Close by Automating Joint Venture Management” to learn the details of how comprehensive and high quality Oracle’s Joint Venture Management product is. It is by far the most comprehensive and the best Joint Venture Management system that is available in the marketplace today. And I am not aware of any North American producer using it.
The Preliminary Specification has defined seven distinct Organizational Constructs. Our key Organizational Construct is the Joint Operating Committee which is the organizational structure that exists to deal with Joint Ventures, the cultural method to represent the partnership organizations established in oil & gas. When we move the current corporate models culture into alignment with the Joint Operating Committee, everything within the producer and industry changes. Nothing in oil & gas remains consistent with the way management operates the industry today. We are aligning the business directly on to the operational and technical cultures of how the industry operates for the past 100 years. This is a culture that is derivative of the partnerships that are represented in oil & gas operations everywhere.
It is our hypothesis that in the 1960s when computers were introduced accounting became one of its uses. Soon after the tax, royalty and regulatory environments were added and soon the ERP systems only recognized the corporate organization and nothing to do with the oil & gas business of the business. A separation between the business vs the technical and operational areas grew and became a source of conflict that precipitated a lack of communications and two independent islands competing for control. Operations dominated out of necessity and the corporate elements were left to satisfy their demands for cash. That is what we’ve eliminated in the Preliminary Specification by aligning the business to the operations and technical culture and the Operations Management module is what and how that will be accomplished.
We are using Oracle’s recommended architectural method of “additions” to the base of all of the Oracle products that we will use. This way none of the code between their efforts and ours will cause any difficulties being released into commercial software if there are changes in either environment. Exploiting full use and value of the object oriented programming model. At the same time I can state unequivocally that both Oracle and People, Ideas & Objects are relational database developers first and foremost.
Recently Oracle implemented a quarterly update schedule for Oracle Cloud ERP where incremental changes and upgrades are scheduled for release each quarter. People, Ideas & Objects will be participating in this quarterly release schedule for our own updates and have noted an added benefit as a result of the Preliminary Specifications structure benefiting from the Organizational Construct under the title “New Growth Theory.” That we are sharing the “non-rival” costs of the infrastructure of accounting and administration across the North American producer population. Therefore the need for each producer CFO to be heavily involved in these ERP changes each quarter can be reduced to a less onerous task when the industry can plan and implement the upgrades on a shared or non-rival basis. Innovation is incrementally increased through iterative developments. They are not big bang changes unless the organization is challenged by existential threats such as the oil & gas producer organizations are today, or through disintermediation.
We are not rebuilding an ERP system from scratch to bring about the Preliminary Specification. We are defining and catering specific oil & gas related software developments that are necessary to deal with the issues and opportunities in oil & gas today and the future. Configuring and augmenting Oracle Cloud ERP to do so. Reorganizing the industry to function on a performant and profitable basis. The Operations Management module combines the business, operations and technical groups into one functioning organization using the same data. Establishing the team environment necessary to collaborate within the producer organization as well at each individual Joint Operating Committee. Which is deemed a necessity to proceed into the difficult and challenging future where the most dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable producers are provided with the most profitable means of oil & gas operations.
Oracle Supply Chain Management
As was just mentioned above, the underlying use of Oracle’s Joint Venture Management solution will form the base of what we develop in the overall Preliminary Specification. Each module of the Preliminary Specification has significant elements of the Oracle Cloud ERP suite of applications that provide the starting point for the work we’ll be doing for oil & gas. We are not recreating the wheel, only building upon it. And using Oracle’s defined method of development architecture that has their Oracle Cloud Fusion Applications and Fusion Middleware as the tools to enhance our additions and not through individual stand alone applications. We can accept this architecture as Intellectual Property is one of People, Ideas & Objects three competitive advantages. Our proprietary content is secured in published form. Therefore in terms of the Operations Management module we’ll be using Oracle Supply Chain Management as the primary base offering and include many other Oracle applications and features being carried through the connections with other modules of the Preliminary Specification.
To gain an understanding of Oracle’s Supply Chain Management offering, it is a good start to review the following YouTube videos.
Oracle developed their cloud based Supply Chain Management solution through the development and integration of their enterprise hardware manufacturing business that they purchased from Sun Microsystems. This development was also used to bring about a Supply Chain Management capability into the Oracle Fusion Middleware and ERP Applications which were and are the source of Oracle Cloud ERP today. One of the unique characteristics of Oracle’s hardware manufacturing process is that each order is Configure to Order (CTO) and delivery is made to 156 countries. Approaching the development of their Supply Chain Management module in this manner is consistent with Oracle’s past methodologies. What is commonly referred to in the software development industry as “eating your own dog food,” or using the software that you develop yourself, Oracle Cloud ERP is used throughout Oracle’s organization.
At People, Ideas & Objects our user community provides for the most profitable means of oil & gas operations, everywhere and always. That is the motivation that drives what it is that we’re doing. Are producer profits from a “real” sense an adequate motivation for our user community to maintain their focus and commitment during the development, implementation, service and maintenance of the greater oil & gas economy? I believe they’ll only need to reflect back on this period and understand that the disaster that is oil & gas, service and tertiary industries, and what will become of the industry in the next decade is a result, and is wholly attributable to the lack of real profitability at these producer firms of a primary industry. Therefore it is reasonable to suggest that our user community is motivated. But there’s more. Our user community are the only people licensed to make changes to the software and services that are derivative of the Preliminary Specification. They are the principles in the service provider organizations they own and operate which service and support the producer firms with the People, Ideas & Objects software they’ve developed. Therefore, they too will be “eating their own dog food.”
Innovation is one of our major initiatives and one of the seven Organizational Constructs of the Preliminary Specification. Innovation needs to be constructed within the organization before it’ll be realized. Therefore much of the design and development of People, Ideas & Objects et al is focused on that organization for both the producer and the greater oil & gas industry. Dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable producers will approach the dichotomy of their profitability vs affordable, abundant and reliable energy which they’ve innovatively provided to the consumer.
It is here in innovativeness that Oracle presents a previously unrealized and otherwise unavailable benefit of Oracle Cloud ERP. The feature is the quarterly upgrade cycle of Oracle Cloud ERP. A feature in which People, Ideas & Objects have architected the Preliminary Specification and therefore oil & gas producers will fully realize. What we know of innovation is iteration and user involvement go hand in hand to make progress.
It was in Sources, Procedures & Macroeconomic Effects of Innovation by Professor Giovanni Dosi that we learned.
… the conditions controlling occupational and geographical mobility and or consumer promptness / resistance to change, market conditions, financial facilities and capabilities and the criteria used to allocate funds. Microeconomic trends in the effects on changes in relative prices of inputs and outputs, including public policy. (regulations, tax codes, patent and trademark laws and public procurement.) (p. 1121)
As Dosi notes, having a firm's financial facilities enhanced provides real value for producers in the 21st century. Iteration on the integrated and aligned business, operations and technical ends of the producer and Joint Operating Committee is where the Operations Management module seeks to bring the disparate elements of the Preliminary Specification together for active management and control.
This next point ties into our earlier quote from Safra Catz regarding now is the time to be bold. The Operations Management module is a new type of application being envisioned that is a necessity when the Internet of Things (IoT) begins the process of comprehensive automation. What People, Ideas & Objects have traditionally called the ability to monitor and control devices. We now prefer to use Oracle’s classifications of “Pull of Data” and “Push of Instruction.” This is a world of exponential data and complexity, risk and uncertainty with unimaginable rewards and opportunities. As the title states it is a journey not a destination. The journey begins with Operations Management and finishes there with the assistance of People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service provider organizations and Oracle established as a permanent ERP software development and integration capacity and capability within the oil & gas and tertiary industries.
The nature of unanticipated and foreseeable catastrophes is documented in the next slide. To the far right is the anticipated frequency of these and the time necessary to prepare for the catastrophic event. I’m unable to categorize the oil & gas industry into any of these situations. A four decade run of destruction, fueled by investor capital sourced through specious means and no action reflects to me that this industry has been built on the basis of catastrophes (boom / bust cycles) where the culture has accepted and accommodated the “hair on fire” situation as normal. Yet when we review a number of producer financial statements. A random sample of 10 or more producers. Can anyone point out the hero and which ones are the zero’s? Over the course of a decade try to determine from these financial statements what the state of the industry was in? Was it boom or bust and did the company win or lose?
People, Ideas & Objects have painted a radically different vision of how the administrative and accounting processes are managed throughout the North American oil & gas producers. Turning their overhead cost structures from fixed to variable based on profitable production. Enabling producers to shut-in any unprofitable production and therefore reaping a substantial value proposition from our software and service provider organizations.
The question becomes how is this opportunity realized? Will a strategy of “muddle through” get us there? Or do these need to be undertaken on a purpose built basis? Much as these fourteen modules of the Preliminary Specification establish and enhance Oracle Cloud ERP to deal with data, the processes and the increase in the number and volume of firms in which it interacts with. And builds value in dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable ways, everywhere and always, for the North American oil & gas producer.
People, Ideas & Objects are pleased to note the broader Oracle community of developers and users in the Oracle Cloud ERP, Oracle Autonomous Database and Java environments. This is a resource pool that we’ll be able to draw upon during our developments, implementations and during operations that will provide further value and performance to the North American oil & gas producers. We would hope to contribute to this community through the challenges that we’re faced with and need to resolve during this process. And the overall task of seeing an industry rebuild itself on the basis of performance and profitability.