Flint Energy Services

Flint Energy Services Keeps Tools in the Pipeline—Oilfield production services provider tracks 60,000 tools with ToolWatch

Situation

Like many companies that grow through conglomeration, Flint Energy Services—formed in 1998 from 32 separate companies—found itself with tens of thousands of tools it had no way to track.

Flint Energy Services is an integrated midstream oilfield production services provider headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, with 4,500 employees, 41 locations, and jobsites all over western Canada and the northwestern United States. A single jobsite might employ as many as 600 workers for two years, using multiple tool cribs on each site. But Flint had no systematic method for keeping track of its tool inventory, not even a simple spreadsheet.

As a result, tools purchased for certain jobs might be misplaced before the project began and replacements often had to be purchased for deployment to the site. Then, on the jobsite, workers would take tools from one part of the site to another, to the point that the company had to dedicate several employees to scouring the entire site looking for tools needed on another part of the project. So not only was the company losing big money in lost tools, it was racking up hefty personnel costs just to look for missing items—which might or might not be located.

Solution

The ToolWatch tool and equipment management system proved itself from day one. The first company to implement all four ToolWatch modules (consumables tracking, service tracking, tool and equipment billing, and purchasing), Flint is now well into its implementation process.

Because there had been no system before ToolWatch, Flint tools and small equipment coordinator Ken Bekar started from scratch two years ago, beginning with a single project, applying barcodes, and entering every item either individually or by identity (hammers, wrenches, etc.) into four ToolWatch databases. Bekar has become so adept at using all the ToolWatch bells and whistles that he's become a power user who can solve most of the issues that arise with the system. When he can't, he has been impressed with ToolWatch's willingness to tweak the software to accommodate his needs.

The purchasing module has proved especially valuable to Bekar. Buying tools on site, rather than through a corporate bidding process, didn't give him the luxury of detailed price comparisons. "I can't imagine operating without it," Bekar said. "Now we can keep tabs on vendor price increases, and I can pool the orders to negotiate more favorable costs."

With ToolWatch's certification tracking feature, Bekar has been able to anticipate and respond to Canada's tightened Occupational Safety and Health regulations, avoiding significant potential liability. Using ToolWatch Mobile on a pocket PC, he tracks employee training and certification, assuring that workers have been trained for certain tasks and tools before they are permitted to check out those items on a site.

Result

Two years into the implementation process, Bekar's team has entered 20,000 tool identities or individual items so far, about one third of the probable inventory. He plans to complete the process by 2007. But there have been dramatic changes already.

Now, instead of workers lining up at the tool crib for tools that weren't available, they have a sophisticated management system that makes everyone accountable. Tool loss no longer shuts down the project pipeline.

Flint Energy Services