Oil and Gas Archives

Cru Software: The Dynamic Solution for Workforce Rostering & Scheduling

February 24, 2022/0 Comments/in Blog, Industries, Mining, Oil and Gas /by Irina Svishcheva

Biarri EMI has rebranded to Cru Software, refining their rostering and scheduling offering to meet the specific needs that make them one of the leading software companies for the resources industry.

Cru Software is dedicated to improving the process of workforce planning and allocation, and are constantly striving to improve their Saas solution in order to provide organisations with cutting edge technology that help to streamline their workforce processes, save time and money, increase productivity and profit.

Our mission is to simplify, organise, and anticipate the demands of the world’s most complex workforces. We are excited to take on a new direction, tackling the complex issues of workforce rostering and scheduling. As a result of what we offer, resource teams have the right tools to automate time-consuming processes, provide insights on business demand and capacity, and leverage the powerful optimisation tools from the Biarri group to ensure the right people are doing the right jobs on the right day – Jason Cameron, CEO, Cru Software

Intelligent Workforce Rostering Software

Cru Software’s innovative and agile rostering software is designed to simplify complicated and manual processes. Cru Rostering removes the complexity so many organisations face, giving your team more control to create efficient and effective rosters, while prioritising the health and safety of your employees with improved fatigue management.

Having helped over 90,000 workers worldwide, Cru Rostering provides a powerful Cloud based Saas platform to simplify the complex workforce. The other unique aspect of Cru Rostering is the unprecedented level of visibility. Forward planning has never been easier, by being able to visualise months of data and having the necessary information on hand.

Smarter Scheduling Software

By consuming key data, Cru Scheduling enables your team to produce an optimised schedule, ensuring consistent and repeatable results every time. Previously executed through disparate manual systems, Cru Scheduling streamlines and consolidates multiple sources of data into one platform simplifying how your team approaches scheduling. Having the correct information allows schedulers to make intelligent and informed decisions around availability, work priorities to minimise planning effort and operational downtime. Combined with the smarts of Cru Rostering, build better schedules for your FTE and contractor workforce.

Read how Cru Software improved Origin Energy’s operations after adopting an automated rostering software and optimised scheduling.

Cru Software

Cru Rostering and Scheduling has a proven track record with some of Australia’s largest Energy and Mining companies, helping businesses maximise value from resources. To book a demo or for a more comprehensive breakdown of Cru Rostering and Scheduling, visit Cru Software, and discover how you can simplify complex rostering and scheduling with the right tool.

Lead the way with the right route planning tool for you and your business

August 5, 2021/0 Comments/in Analytics, Blog, Business, Industries, Logistics, Manufacturing, Mathematics, Oil and Gas, Other, Technology /by Irina Svishcheva

Introduction

Navigating through last-mile delivery offerings can be a daunting task as you figure out which route planning software tool is the most applicable for your team, your business operation needs and budget. When considering Biarri’s Run and Route planning software, there can be a range of important factors to consider, such as:

Finding the best tool to reduce your operational costs and improve your bottom line;
Purchasing the necessary functionality to streamline current business planning and supply chain management,
Identifying gaps within your current operations that could benefit from an automated software solution, as you seek to make technological advancements,
Selecting the correct route planning tool that has the capacity to deal with your business intricacies and complexities, such as delivery windows, drop off specifications and vehicle compatibility.

As you work through the finer details of other route planning software providers take a look through our customer profiles to see which one best aligns with you and your business.

Customer Type Summary

Customer Profile	Pain Points and Challenges
General Manager	Reducing operational costs. Managing day to day to operations
Vice President of Logistics and Planning	Meeting customer demand and ensuring a safe and smooth operation. Supply chain management and refining processes
Digital Transformation Manager	Improving business processes through AI solutions. Simplifying and streamlining procedures
Delivery Schedule Planner	Creating a efficient delivery schedule that meets customer demand

Are you a General Manager?

Biarri’s Run and Route’s first customer profile describes General Managers of medium to large sized organisations (200+ employees). They hold a management position within the organisation – and are charged with overseeing the day to day service and deliveries of their distribution centre. With broad industry experience and academic qualifications, this GM drives strategy and performance across his business in revenue growth, cost reduction, operational efficiency and customer experience.

As business and demand continues to grow so does the business’s costs; mindful of their bottom line and an eye into the future, they seek alternative options that can aid the delivery scheduling team in being able to meet their customers’ needs by making deliveries on time and on demand, and reducing the man hours spent on creating schedules through old hand method ways like Excel and Google maps.

Does this sound familiar? If so, our Run and Route tool helps solve the above challenges by creating an optimal and efficient set of routes, reducing drivers’ travel distance and accelerating the delivery process.

Are you a Vice President of Logistics and Planning?

Aligned closely with the General Manager, Scopta’s Run and Route next profile holds an executive role within the company and leads the logistics and planning functions. Tasked with ensuring the quality, efficiency and scalability of the supply chain, the Vice President of Logistics and Planning is constantly looking for systems, processes and technical solutions to gain and maintain competitive advantage.

Overseeing the supply chain processes of a large distribution centre of a goods company, they take a great deal of interest in business processes and delivery outcomes and performance, with a desire to stay at the forefront of the industry. Taking a measured approach to how best to improve the service and delivery of their goods, they are on the constant lookout for solutions that can streamline the planning of delivery schedules and achieve efficient and cost effective planning.

Open to technology advancement, they see the implementation of a route planning software program as a great advantage for route planning for more efficient delivery schedules.

Does this sound familiar? If so, our Run and Route tool helps solve the above challenges by being market leaders in route optimisation, and being a functional and agile tool that simplifies the way you plan and deal with last minute adjustments.

Are you a Digital Transformation Officer?

With an eye to the future and a strong understanding of current business operations, our next profile looks to advance the company through digitalisation and with the integration of artificial intelligence. As a key decision maker with a background in information technology, they are motivated by efficiency and productivity, constantly looking to refine and improve supply chain processes. With a view to automating and digitising where possible, the Digital Transformation Officer sees potential to improve the last-mile delivery planning process, which currently involves a mixture of data sources, manual processes, online mapping tools and excel spreadsheets. This results in labour intensive processes, a lack of optimisation, barriers to scalability and key personnel risk.

The Digital Transformation Officer plays a vital role in the continual refinement of these practices, looking to streamline their processes through optimisation as they look for the best route planning software for their business requirements.

Does this sound familiar? If so, our Run and Route tool helps solve the above challenges through automated route planning solutions. Streamline the way your team plan and organise their trucking fleet, with a single tool containing all the functionality your team needs to deal with your business requirements.

Are you a Delivery Scheduler Planner?

Last but not least, the Delivery Scheduler. They have the critical role of planning the routes and delivery schedules for their 20+ trucking fleet. Equipped with nothing more than a spreadsheet, an online map and vast experience (perhaps having been a delivery driver themselves), they spend the better part of their week organising delivery schedules.

Motivated by meeting customers’ demand and ensuring deliveries are completed, there are many variables and barriers that they face. Dealing with the complexities of considering delivery windows, driver availability, infrastructure and truck requirements and specific load types, all while making sure delivery schedules are ready by the first delivery is a time-consuming and extremely difficult task when completed by hand.

Perhaps a route planning software tool could help?

Does this sound familiar? If so, our Run and Route tool helps solve the above challenges through its powerful optimisation engine. Be enabled to do more with a centralised system that deals with complex scenarios and variables, ensuring that you produce not only an error free delivery schedule but an efficient and cost effective set of routes.

Speak to our team now based on your above persona

If any of the following profiles or challenges resonate with you and your business, please reach out to one of our team members to discuss how Biarri’s Run and Route can assist, using the below contact form.

With a strong understanding of the constraints and challenges last mile delivery and route planning entail, the team behind Biarri’s Run and Route are dedicated to working along side you to improve your business processes and route planning through automation and optimisation.

Run and Route Contact Form

Grounding the complexity to Fly in Fly Out management

April 8, 2015/0 Comments/in Analytics, Blog, Construction, Industries, Logistics, Mathematics, Mining, Oil and Gas, Operations Research /by Ash Nelson

Being able to close the labour and skill gap is a critical factor in sustaining growth and maximising profitability for remote operations. It is imperative that companies have the tools and skills available to unravel the complexity to FIFO management.

FIFO workforces are commonly used by large infrastructure and resource projects in remote regions including rural and offshore. These regions often don’t have adequate infrastructure or an available local workforce with the right skillset which leads to companies requiring the use of workers from interstate and sometimes overseas.

The FIFO problem is complex for many companies. It involves determining efficient ways to move people via aircraft, taking into consideration: multiple projects at various phases over multiple locations, with a dynamic workforce utilising different skillsets on a variety of roster patterns, as well as using a fleet consisting of different types and numbers of aircraft.

Often the goal with FIFO management is to determine the number, and type, of aircraft needed in order to minimise cost whilst working with the opposing objectives of ensuring: the staff arrive before the start of their shift (but not too early), depart after the end of their shift (but not too late) and keeping travel durations to acceptable lengths (to ensure low fatigue).

Analytics to break through the complexity

With this level of complexity, a traditional excel approach lacks the rigour and power to find the most efficient and effective results. As a result we’ve developed a number of different FIFO optimisers at Biarri to help ensure the best outcome for clients.

The reality is that there are often many more factors that need to be considered which complicates the problem further. Each FIFO optimisation problem often turns out to be quite different once the detail of the problem is better understood.

High Level FIFO Requirements

Some companies just want us to help them “define their fleet, or travel requirements” so they can then go out to tender (it also helps to keep the vendors honest), others actually want an operational tool. Others may be looking to see if there is a business case for upgrading an airport (e.g. if the airport is upgraded, then larger aircraft can be used which can reduce the need for bus in bus out (BIBO) which will alter their risk profile due to road km and can dramatically alter travel durations).

Specific FIFO requirements

Our clients often want different levels of detail in the solution. Some are happy with a solution that ensures adequate movements at the week level (e.g. 15 flights of aircraft type A between locations B and C per week), others want very detailed minute by minute schedules which take into account: turnaround time, time between takeoff and landing, number of aircraft gates with solutions showing exactly who is travelling on which flight and aircraft and when.

Across Multiple Projects

Our clients have also had multiple projects which are often on the go at the same time and sometimes different priorities are given to different projects. These priorities can be used to ensure that if all the people movement demands can’t be met, then the lower priority movements are less likely to be satisfied.

Optimising the time horizon

The optimisation time horizon can also vary significantly with some clients optimising over a 24 hour period (or even less if they want to re-optimise in the middle of the day due to unpredictable events such as delays due to weather) through to clients wanting higher level schedules over several years to help them make strategic decisions and determine how their fleet needs to change over time.

Understanding the constraints

Constraints such as: the maximum distance an aircraft can travel before needing to refuel, maintenance schedules and the refuelling locations themselves often also need to be considered. We’ve dealt with both fixed and rotary wing (helicopters) aircraft. Helicopters have the additional complication of sometimes having to take more fuel (and thus weight) to travel further, which results in the reduction of passengers because of the helicopter’s limited total payload capacity.

Finding the right FIFO parameters

We have outlined some of the parameters that our FIFO optimisers have considered. It is by no means comprehensive and we can always include new parameters if a different problem requires them but it gives a good understanding into the different variables that can, and should be considered.

Some of the typical inputs include:

Airport information

Location
Hours of operation
Refuelling capability
Refuelling duration
Availability (i.e. you can specify a start and end date for which the airport is available)

Aircraft information

Serial number
Category (e.g. fixed wing or rotary wing)
Type (e.g. DASH 8-200)
Average speed
Passenger seats
Maximum payload
Fuel density
Fuel tank capacity
Re-fuelling time
Fuel burn rate
Base location
Availability (i.e. you can specify a start and end date for which the aircraft is available)
Costs

Flight Legs

From location
To Location
Distance
Aircraft types able to fly this leg

Project priorities

People Movement Demands

Origin
Destination
Project
Number of passengers
From Date
To Date
Arrive Before (i.e. must arrive on their first working day of the roster by this time)
Depart After (i.e. must depart after this time on the last working day of the roster)
Roster Pattern (e.g. 14:14 = 14 days on, 14 days off)
Day of week (i.e. which day of the week can this person travel)
Group (demands can be grouped together to allow the user to specify which demands can be grouped on the same aircraft)

Some of the typical outputs include:

KPIs - There are around 40 KPIs, some of them are listed below

Resource Summary (i.e. which aircraft are required and when)

Flight leg details (i.e. which flight legs are required and when)

Flight ID
Resource ID
Pax capacity
Available pax capacity (this is < pax capacity if the fuel weight is a limiting factor)
Total used pax
Utilisation Percentage
Departure location
Departure date and time
Arrival location
Arrival date and time
Day of week
Total distance
Total hours flown
Total fuel burned
Fuel weight at start of leg
Refuel at destination (true or false)
Turn around time
Cost

Flight leg pax details (i.e. which people movement demands travel on which flight legs)

Project summary (i.e. which demands from which projects were satisfied)

Project name
Total demand
Total satisfied demand
Total unsatisfied demand (e.g. this will be non zero if there is not enough capacity to transport demand)
Total impossible to satisfy demand (e.g. this will be non zero if a flight path has not been specified in the inputs that results in some demand being impossible to satisfy regardless of aircraft resources available)

Flight summary

Flight ID
Number of instances (i.e. how many times is this flight route flown at the same time – but on different dates)
Resource
Date of first flight
Date of last flight
Day of week
Departure time
Arrival time
Total people
Total distance
Total hours flown
Total fuel burned

Unravel the complexity to FIFO Management

The work we have done for companies such as Arrow, Origin, QGC, BMA, IBS, and Santos has shown us that despite having FIFO problems, they all required different approaches in order to achieve the right result.

This has demonstrated to us that when approaching a FIFO problem, where so many different variables have to be considered depending on the client, a standard approach (Commercial off the shelf product) and excel models will generally struggle with the complexity.

Having a tool built around specific variables demonstrates the benefits to bespoke solutions for FIFO problems.

Find out more about Biarri in Mining >>
Find out more about Biarri in Oil & Gas >>
Find out more about Biarri and FIFO Scheduling >>

Or, Get in contact so we can discuss your requirements.

The role of people logistics in oil and gas projects

March 18, 2015/2 Comments/in Analytics, Blog, Mining, Oil and Gas /by Ash Nelson

Efficient and effective logistics is vital to large Oil & Gas projects – equipment must be transported to work sites and raw products need to be processed and then delivered to customers, often using multiple modes of transport in a complex supply chain. In addition to this complexity, another important part of the overall logistics problem is people logistics – How do we move personnel to and from a worksite both safely and efficiently?

Why should I invest in personnel?

Particularly in Australia, where many work sites exist in remote areas, it is not always feasible to relocate employees and their families to a town near the work site. As a result, many workforce personnel are employed on a fly-in fly-out (FIFO) or bus-in bus-out (BIBO) basis, where the employer is responsible for moving personnel to and from the work site.

A 2013 report from Ernst & Young indicated that human capital deficit is one of the top ten risks facing the global Oil & Gas industry, affirming that

as the sector develops technologically . . . companies that can retain and mobilize people will be able to sustain their competitive advantage.

Effective and efficient personnel mobilization is crucial to any significant oil and gas project. Research published in 2012 by the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government (ACELG) into the prevalence of FIFO in Australia predicts that percentage of Australian mining sector jobs filled by FIFO roles will only increase over the coming years.

Improper workforce utilisation increases susceptibility to many internal and external issues, such as: a high employee turnover, high ongoing operational costs to the business, and under- or over-allocation of staff to specific jobs.

Analytics to cut through complexity

People logistics for a large project requires the coordination of travel and accommodation for hundreds, sometimes thousands of people in various remote locations. As with traditional logistics, several crucial decisions have to be made including BIBO vs FIFO, choice of airports or bus routes and staff roster schedules. In addition to this complexity, working with personnel often requires much greater scrutiny – we don’t always require a minimal-cost solution – we need to balance cost, project risk, employee safety and employee satisfaction.

Trying to weigh up all these variables and make decisions in an intelligent way for all of the personnel involved in a project very quickly becomes complex. A 2014 interview by Mining Australia notes that “for many companies [workforce management] is manual, or only semi-automated, which increases the risk of error or processing inefficiencies, increasing costs”. Managing a large workforce is difficult, and only with the right technology can companies provide efficient and effective workforce management.

Through analytics companies can cut through the complexity involved in workforce management. By considering specific variables and how they affect outcomes companies can make better decisions.

Analytics empowers organisations through quantitative justification so that decision makers can be certain that employees will be spending less time in transit, and working on the right jobs at the right times, with the right people.

Biarri and People Logistics

Biarri delivers consulting and SaaS solutions to provide the right technology to enable effective workforce management.

Biarri has a proven track record, delivering people logistics and FIFO solutions for Oil & Gas and Mining companies in Australia including Santos, BMA, and Arrow Energy.

To learn more about how Biarri can help your organisation benefit from analytics and optimisation for people logistics get in touch today!

A modern approach to oil and gas logistical operations

March 12, 2015/0 Comments/in News, Oil and Gas /by Ash Nelson

Time is money in the drilling business. With the cost of drilling conventional and unconventional gas wells rising into the millions of dollars, reducing downtime and expediting setup time are critical to all stakeholders.

Biarri recently worked with the Australian division of Savanna Energy – a subsidiary of the Savanna Group, a premiere North American energy services provider headquartered in Calgary, Alberta. Savanna Energy came in contact with Biarri through a referral from an existing client who recognised that Biarri offered a range of capabilities that could help solve Savanna’s unique supply chain and logistics problem.

Biarri built a cloud based Transport Request Tool that facilitates the movement of equipment and resources required by oil and gas well sites.The tool deals with Savanna’s challenge of maintaining satisfaction with the various Coal Seam Gas (CSG) proponents by effectively, and efficiently managing their communication.

Tzara Ayton, Biarri Project Manager and Core Developer explained,

“The initial goal of the project was to develop a tool that would take Savanna’s existing fleet requirements and find the best way to automate the allocation process. However, it was quickly discovered that Savanna required a modern, operational tool that would make their day to day operations easier, and act as a platform to collect clean data so that Biarri could build an optimisation solution. As it turns out, Biarri was suited for this problem as we have strong capabilities in not only smart strategic systems, but intuitive and powerful operational tools.”

Stephen Baily, Transport Manager at Savanna Energy said,

“Biarri built an efficient system for the computerized booking of transport movements for Savanna Energy. The software delivered to us is an extremely workable, efficient and user-friendly product.

The new approach has allowed us to reduce man hours and gives us a quicker turn around on job tasks. It also allows us to track our vehicles and kilometres travelled at the click of a mouse.”

“We wanted to ensure that the implementation of a new Transport Request Tool added greater visibility, improved coordination between field services and supply, enhanced responsiveness and added rigour to standard operating procedures”

said Ash Guy, Design Lead and Core Developer.

Savanna had a clear focus on ensuring the Transport Request Tool was customised to their particular requirements and met stringent use criteria. It was important that any changes to systems or processes were accepted by Savanna staff. As result, all of the new interfaces were collaboratively designed to be consistent with formats that Savanna Planners were already familiar with.

Savanna’s old excel spreadsheets were replaced by an interactive gantt chart which displays truck assignments, and their designated driver. This process happens in real time. The visibility has been enhanced allowing the Senior Pusher to see across his entire fleet, identify what has been assigned and what hasn’t. It also feeds back validation information helping to prevent assignment of the same driver to two vehicles at the same time, overlapping jobs on the same vehicle and vehicle assignments going outside of the requested time bounds.

The new Transport Request Tool allows Savanna to track any changes made to each individual transport request. This is particularly relevant when last minute changes require hiring extra trucks to satisfy urgent demand. The improved level of granularity delivered within the tool means that Savanna can identify where last minute changes were made and charge an appropriate service premium.

Management also benefit from the improved visibility. It gives them a ‘birds-eye-view’ of what is going on everywhere within the supply chain. Risk is also better managed through an audit log which allows traceability across any changes that have been made with each request. This was a significant enhancement for Savanna who can now better track what was ordered when and determine the specific costs arising from last minute changes to the plan.

Tom Forbes Chief Executive Officer at Biarri stated,

“Having a tool that facilitates accurate and consistent communication across all key logistical stakeholders is key in any business situation. Not only does the tool provide direct benefits to Savanna but it also produces clean, reliable data, so that we can find even more cost and efficiency savings within their business processes through value added optimisation.”

Savanna Energy now has access to files via the cloud ensuring far greater communication. The Transport Request Tool forms the core of the scheduling process and is a central resource across the organisation catering for all key stakeholders.

Stephen Baily said,

“My colleague and I worked closely with the Biarri team and they were able to tailor the tool to meet our specific requirements. They also allowed us to easily troubleshoot any obstacles that were presented. In all, a very professional and well-engineered product.”

If you wanted to find out more about how Biarri can help across your oil and gas operations, or how we can deliver savings across your entire oil and gas project, get in touch today!

Intelligent Energy Logistics on the World Stage

January 21, 2015/0 Comments/in News, Oil and Gas /by Ash Nelson

At the end of last year Ash Nelson (Biarri Co-Founder) and Tzara Ayton (Biarri, Senior Optimisaiton Consultant), two of Biarri’s Oil and Gas specialists, attended the DHL Global Energy Conference at the Petroleum Club in Houston. The theme was Intelligent Energy Logistics.

Together with Jonathon Shortis (DHL VP Energy – EMEA), Ash was invited to present on Data Management across End to End Supply Chains and participate in the associated panel discussion.

Ash’s presentation focused on the benefits improved data management and analysis can play in Energy Supply Chain design and operation. This was an opportunity to showcase the proven solutions Biarri has provided in the On-Shore Coal Seam Gas industry in Queensland over the past 5 years and also demonstrate the important impact analytics is having in modern oil and gas operations.

The discussion included:

Pre FEED/FEED analysis and design to support investment decisions and supply chain design including demand definition, optimised facility sizing and location, transport planning and people logistics requirements
Operational Management using tactical data management to deliver better day to day decision making. An example of this is the Biarri Capital Project Freight Portal which is used to allocate transport and sequence, track, co-ordinate and record the movement of Free Issue Material to infield construction programs.

IT’S GREAT TO SEE THAT OIL AND GAS COMPANIES AROUND THE WORLD ARE INNOVATING THROUGH THE POWER OF MATHEMATICS AND INTELLIGENT ENERGY DESIGN.

BEING ABLE TO JUSTIFY YOUR DECISIONS THROUGH SMART SYSTEMS AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS IS CRITICAL IN MODERN OIL AND GAS OPERATIONS.

Ash Nelson, Biarri Co Founder.

If you would like to find out more information on how Biarri can improve the efficiency of your Oil and Gas operation, Get in touch;

or Contact Sam Rowse, Chief Sales Officer:
Mobile:0458 004 220
Email: sam.rowse@biarri.com

Driving efficiency in the Oil and Gas industry

January 20, 2015/0 Comments/in Analytics, Blog, Business, Mathematics, Oil and Gas, Operations Research /by Ash Nelson

The oil and gas industry has been under severe pressure since late 2014 when oil prices dropped significantly. The highly volatile international market and oversupply of oil has meant companies have had to reduce costs in one way shape or form.

Bill Kroger, co-chair of law firm Baker Botts told Rigzone in an interview that, “Energy companies may need to lower their prices in response to a drop in demand …. For this reason, we may see CAPEX [capital expenditures] begin to decline until there is some stability with oil prices,”

This has been evident in Australia where many oil and gas companies have reduced capital spending significantly. However, with a lot of oil and gas projects shifting towards the operational phase, how can we make processes and decisions more efficient and effective?