GASFRAC ENERGY SERVICES INC
“I like the fact that with SAP Business One and the FieldVu add-on, we can get the functionality we need now, and when our needs change, we can easily bolt on some new modules.”
Neil Bothwell, Chief Financial Officer, GASFRAC Energy Services Inc.
After mere months, this new company is up-and-running with SAP Business One, and a hand-picked selection of FieldVu add-on modules for oil and gas service companies.
When a company is in the business of changing conventional thinking, they need Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software to match. In the fall of 2007, when new oil and gas service company GASFRAC Energy Services was just months away from opening its doors, CFO Neil Bothwell had some ERP decisions to make.
“I knew we’d need something more than QuickBooks,” says Bothwell. “I have experience with SAP when I was with Nexen, and was comfortable with its look and feel. I talked to some colleagues and they recommended SAP Business One.”
GASFRAC is a well fracturing company that has developed a proprietary new technology, called the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Fracturing Process, which uses gelled LPG in place of conventional fracturing fluids.
Initially, GASFRAC plans to provide its services in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) and expand the market for LPG Fracturing Process, both of geography and capacity, based on customer demand. The unique properties of the LPG fracturing process result in significant savings on material expenses and fracture clean up, as well as increased well productivity.
“This is a fast-moving company that’s positioned to fundamentally change how fracturing is done in the oil and gas industry,” says Troy Monaghan, Services Manager with VistaVu Solutions. “After meeting with Neil and the rest of the GASFRAC team, we felt that SAP Business One was an excellent solution for them. Being in the oil and gas service industry, our FieldVu add-on also made a great deal of sense for this new business.”
Implementation: process, with flexibility, pays off
In the fall of 2007, GASFRAC was preparing to launch its business, initially serving the needs of oil and gas production companies in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. With equipment purchased, and staff hired, every delay on the road to GASFRAC’s first day of business would represent a significant financial loss. The company needed to be open for business by the very early spring of 2008, with a fully functional ERP system to make it work.
After consultations with VistaVu, GASFRAC chose SAP Business One with three FieldVu modules it considered most essential to its immediate success: job costing, work orders and third-party billing.
“I like the fact that with SAP Business One and the FieldVu add-on, we can get the functionality we need now,” says Bothwell, “and when our needs change, we can easily bolt on some new modules.”
Monaghan explains that the key factor in the success of any implementation is process. Regardless of the size and scope of the project, VistaVu rigorously follows a 15-step implementation process. The first step is a kick-off meeting with the client, and the second is the development of a scoping document for the project.
For GASFRAC, the scoping document was a detailed, 57-page, four-month roadmap to the company’s successful launch of SAP Business One and FieldVu.
The final steps to implementation involve training of staff to use the system, setting up the opening balance, establishing security measures and finally, going live.
In the time between contract signing and going live, both GASFRAC and VistaVu had plenty to do. Monaghan credits the team at GASFRAC for the efficiency of this implementation.
“It's really a two-way street,” he says. “We depend on the client to help us assist them, and when a company is as busy as GASFRAC, it's hard for people to find the time. We appreciate that they'd make that time.”
As important as the scoping document is, rarely does an implementation proceed precisely according to its specifications. That’s because circumstances can change midstream, compelling both client and software provider to be flexible.
“There was one function we thought we wouldn’t get,” says Bothwell, “but once we got into the implementation, we found we needed it after all.”
By the time GASFRAC went live with SAP Business One and FieldVu in late-March 2008, VistaVu had trained 12 staff to use the system. Eventually, Bothwell plans to roll out the system to staff in the field. He also sees the day when GASFRAC wants more of what FieldVu can offer, and expects to add more modules as time goes on. Monaghan agrees that this phased approach make sense for many companies.
“Business One and FieldVu offer a tremendous amount of functionality, so there’s a tendency to try to do too much too quickly,” he says. “VistaVu recommends that companies get up and running with the software, then we can look at introducing new FieldVu modules as part of a Phase 2 implementation. Because we have our own programming and implementation teams, we can set you up with new modules very quickly and easily.”
In Bothwell’s experience, companies shopping for ERP software might perceive SAP as a more complex or costly option than other alternatives. Now that GASFRAC is using SAP Business One and FieldVu on a daily basis, he believes such perceptions might be misplaced.
Says Bothwell: “They were quite good about retooling as required, and to me, we’re getting a lot of functionality for the price.”
To hear more about the Gasfrac and VistaVu Solutions partnership from Jim Mikulckik, Controller, click here.