Four ways to boost R.O.I. on labor

When you see the whole picture on dispatch, costing, certifications and utilization, you’ll get more from every labor dollar you spend.

Whether it’s in Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma or Alberta, oil and gas field service companies deliver the same message when they meet Jory Lamb: labor costs are hurting us.

“There are thousands of oil and gas service companies in North America, and I’ve yet to meet one that’s not concerned about labor costs,’ says Lamb, President and CEO of oil and gas business software leader VistaVu Solutions. “When I meet with companies, my approach is to dig deeper and find out specifically where they’re feeling the pain. Once we know that, we address it.”

In Lamb’s experience, four areas are typically most prominent.

1. Dispatch. Keeping track of who’s in the field and who’s not can be a real headache, yet it’s essential for success. “Companies need to know where their people are,” says Lamb, “and when they’re due back from the field, so they can properly plan the next job or project.”

2. Costing. Many companies are frustrated by the lack of real-time information on profitability. Instead of waiting to the end of a project to see whether they made money on labor, they’d rather know as the job progresses.

3. Certifications. “There's a tremendous focus today on health and safety,” says Lamb. “Knowing who has which skills and which level of certification, and when it’s coming due, directly affects efficiency and profitability.”

4. Utilization. There may be nothing more frustrating than billable hours that go unbilled, causing the field services company to absorb costs that a client should be paying. Capturing every hour, whether in the field or in the office, would help eliminate unbilled labor costs.

When these are a company's main issues around labor, it’s usually not hard for Lamb to diagnose the root problem.

“Very often, these companies manage their businesses from multiple software platforms, causing multiple entries with multiple opportunities for error,” he says. “The key is to run field operations through one system, and enter labor costs once.”

Introducing FieldVu

To address the needs of oil and gas field service companies, Lamb and the VistaVu team developed FieldVu. An add-on to SAP Business One, FieldVu allows companies to manage a range of labor issues better than ever.

The Dispatch function monitors who’s in the field and who’s available for assignment. With Labor Costing, it’s simple to track costs against resulting revenue, so you always know where you stand on project profitability. FieldVu’s Certification area keeps tabs on employees’ qualifications and alerts you when they’re due for renewal. Finally, the Labor Utilization function can generate a resource utilization report on field operations, outlining the availability of people and how much you use them.

“Just as important, there’s no more need to enter labor time into multiple systems,” notes VistaVu’s Mark Hewitt. “With FieldVu, there’s a single point of time entry. You enter time once and it feeds billing, job costing and payroll automatically.”

Ready to see the whole picture on your workforce’s Return on Investment? Talk to VistaVu Solutions about FieldVu.

For more information on the people, products, approach and values of VistaVu Solutions, visit www.vistavusolutions.com or call President and CEO Jory Lamb at (403) 819-4930.