Lack of expertise poses a barrier to seeing the benefits of digitalisation

03 March 2018

In a recent survey undertaken by AspenTech over 400 energy industry managers and executives were asked for their thoughts about the impact of analytics and big data on the energy business in the next 24 months. Improving reliability was found to be the key objective for upstream and downstream companies as well as the engineering, procurement & construction (EPC) firms that serve them.

To achieve greater asset availability and utilisation, organisations are undertaking digital transformation initiatives that use advanced analytics and machine learning to drive increases in asset reliability and performance. Survey respondents indicate clear and compelling interest in the potential of analytics to drive operational excellence, with over 40% of respondents believing that digitalisation can save 16% or more in operating expenses (OPEX).

The survey also found that analytics adoption is growing rapidly, with 51% of upstream/midstream firms and 40% of downstream companies currently using or testing data analytics. A total of 72% of respondents agree that maximising uptime is the top benefit seen from analytics, followed by equipment monitoring (68%), reduced maintenance costs (68%); automated operations (62%); expanded remote operations (61%); flow assurance/safety (60%) and reduced capital expenses, or CAPEX (58%).

However, many find that getting started with advanced analytics is a challenge, with lack of expertise being cited as the top barrier to adopting data analytics, with 49% of EPCs and 45% of upstream/midstream companies saying that a lack of in-house expertise is their top barrier to realising the benefits of analytics.