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Collaboration is the biggest challenge facing EPC contractors in the oil and gas industry, according to an industry insider.
“What we are seeing is they are being asked for a lot more collaboration. So they are now working for numerous different organisations they are contracted to. All these different organisations have different reporting requirements, have different standards, exchange data in different ways,” said Ian Johnson, sales manager at IFS, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions firm.
“We are seeing a lot of requests saying can we exchange data, can we consolidate with other systems. There is more of a demand for standards inside IT. So that’s what we are seeing a lot of, requests of collaboration between companies and between systems,” Johnson added.
IFS works extensively with oil and gas contractors, providing IT solutions through the planning, construction and maintenance stages of a project. Johnson also revealed that the firm’s biggest current growth market is in EPC contracts: “EPCI is probably the biggest growth sector we are seeing and that is substantial because we are seeing significant growth in utilities.”
