Shell Exploration & Production Company (SEPCo) improves data entry process and accuracy of data usin

Background

 

Headquartered in the Netherlands, Shell Exploration & Production Company (SEPCo) is a leading international energy and petrochemical company specializing in the exploration, production, refining, and marketing of oil and natural gas products. With its presence in over 70 countries and 92,000 employees, Shell globally strives to innovate cleaner energy solutions. Its principal operations located in the Gulf of Mexico, Texas, and Wyoming.

Challenge

• Employee productivity took a hit due to ongoing operational inefficiency.
  • Cause: Before GuiXT Liquid UI, an operator would have to double-click on an order, click on the operation tab, select the operation and then click on the General button to see the order status.
  • Effect: Numerous unnecessary keystrokes made the process complex and tedious, which affected employee productivity.
• Entering the equipment history and failure data was cumbersome.
  • Cause: Before modifying their Cross-Application Time Sheet (CATS), SEPCo users would have to copy the order number to the change work order(IW32) transaction, select notification, enter the history and then go back to the CATS screen.
  • Effect: Redundant procedures to document equipment history and failure data was exasperating for SEPCo users.
• Unable to edit CATS in display mode made the order process impractical.
  • Cause: SAP standard functionality only allows a user to view an order in the display mode from CATS. It does not allow to change it.
  • Effect: SEPCo´s personnel were unable to edit details in CATS, which made the process convoluted and lengthy, hampering users performance.
• Absence of a streamlined approach made recording work variant codes, hours, and short description arduous.
  • Cause: A requirement of the STARS Work Management Process is to capture work variances associated with the operation.
  • Effect: Unable to efficiently capture variant codes, hours, and a short description resulted in a drastic drop in employee productivity.

Solution

• "GuiXT Liquid UI allowed us to manipulate/combine SAP screens to improve the data entry process."
  -Paul Myhre, SAP PM Process Lead SEPCo
• With GuiXT Liquid UI, SEPCo users are now able to enter time, confirm PM operations, enter notification history, and change TECO (Technically Closed) orders from the CATS screen.
• Liquid UI for SAP GUI customized their SAP PM process by aggregating multiple fields from different screens and tabs to an order header tab. The order header tab customization minimized keystrokes/navigations thus enhancing employee efficiency.
• Furthermore, Liquid UI GuiXT provided the status of current operation(s) with a single click on a pushbutton.

• SEPCo wanted the process of documenting equipment history and failure data painless and seamless as this process is critical in trying to reduce equipment breakdowns and production deferment.
• Now with GuiXT Liquid UI, a craft person can directly pull an associated notification to enter failure data, malfunction end dates, CLSD it, etc., right from the CATS screen.
• SEPCo users needed the ability to remove their individual work center from the operation when the assigned work was not completed. Thus indicating to the planner/scheduler to reschedule the work to someone else.
• GuiXT Liquid UI simplified this process by providing edit capability on the CATS screen for the SAP PM order field.

• GuiXT Liquid UI streamlined SEPCo´s entire work order management process from which users can now efficiently capture variant codes, hours, and short descriptions.
• It provided pop-up screen on Time Entry field in CATS where the user can flag the operation, add work variance codes, enter the associated variance, and record hours with a short description.
• GuiXT Liquid UI enhanced SEPCo´s SAP PM by getting rid of non-value pop-up messages while changing Basic Start and Finish Dates.
• Also, GuiXT Liquid UI optimized SEPCo´s SAP MM by minimizing the number of screens required to create a requisition.

Other Areas of GuiXT Liquid UI Usage:

• Capacity Planning Board: add a button to save changes without exiting the user out of the planning board.
• Put refresh button on the Scheduling (ABAP) Report to update the changes the user makes in the data.
• Simplification of PS maintenance screens, i.e., create/maintain WBS elements.
• Add a button to upload a WBS element structure from a spreadsheet saving setup time and maintaining data consistency.
• Combine AP invoice processing screens into one screen.
• Simplify service entry and the use of a single-screen transaction.
• Set better defaults that we have not been able to change before.
• Displaying information on transactions to assist incorrect user input (i.e., GR information).

Results

• Improved operational efficiency by automating repetitive tasks.
• Minimized the keystrokes it took to complete various SAP transactions and functions.
• Improved the data entry process and accuracy of data.
• Increased employee efficiency because common data are reused and automatically populated.

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Next Steps

Liquid UI enables you to customize business processes, eliminate fields, consolidate screens, tabs, and transactions to achieve a holistic solution while preserving transaction richness. It does this without having to rebuild the whole transaction.