To support high safety standards in all different sites, Petrobras launched its first mobile application to record safety observations on oil extraction and refining locations, including its remote sites.
During the first few weeks of the pilot phase, Petrobras registered more than 90 incidents. Every time an employee sees a potential hazard related to any structure integrity, loss of contention, drops, or a situation that could cause a fire, they can register this safety observation in the app and a task management flow is created. Depending on the incident, the responsible area receives the notification and can take action.
The immediate value realized from the mobile app prompted the company to expand the rollout of the meaningful application built with SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) for SAP Environment, Health, and Safety Management.
A state-owned, multinational corporation headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Petrobras is one of the largest producers of oil and gas in the world, and is primarily engaged in exploring and producing oil and gas, refining, energy generation and trading. With strong expertise in ultra-deep water exploration and production, resulting from almost 50 years of developing the Brazilian offshore basins, the enterprise can be counted among the world leaders in the industry.
Safety Precautions Taken Seriously
Dealing with gas exploration is high risk and can be extremely dangerous. Having fuel — liquid and gaseous — passing through various gears and equipment powered by electricity can breed disastrous incidents. For instance, having fire hydrants that are blocked by boxes, or having a pile of rags stacked near any heat sources could cause an explosion. These instances, combined with low communication capabilities on remote sites and a lack of efficiency in reporting, often cause delays in mitigating incidents. Yet simple actions can prevent fatal catastrophes from happening.
Petrobras worked with SAP to look for ways to shorten reporting times and more effectively support maintenance workers in the field.
Designing and Developing Along a Human-Centered Approach
The SAP AppHaus Team in Palo Alto supported this project along SAP’s Human-Centered Approach to Innovation to tackle individual business challenges and collaborate with users on a future solution that addresses the company’s need in a pragmatic way with SAP solutions.
“User research provides an essential foundation for the design strategy. It is a powerful tool to address users` needs and solve the business problem.”
– Mirela Viersa, SAP AppHaus Palo Alto project lead
Petrobras aims to invest responsibly, striving to be the best energy company in value generation with a focus on sustainability, safety, and respect for people and the environment.
With a commitment to high safety standards, Petrobras partnered with SAP and successfully went live with the Identificação de Desvios e Incidents e Anomalias (IDEIA) app pilot with field workers.
Enabled by SAP BTP, the purpose of the IDEIA application is to record incidents in remote areas of oil extraction and refining, as well as other Petrobras sites, allowing for asynchronous recording and updating.
The asynchronous process enables workers to record an incident without the need of network connection, and once the recording device is connected to a network again, it will sync the incident to the database. Its implementation will allow for greater speed and promptness in actions and become a disruptive tool in the management of anomalies in the environment, health, and safety (EHS) area of Petrobras.
“The IDEIA solution, developed jointly by Petrobas and SAP, is helping field users to identify safety incidents in the offshore platform and Petrobas R&D Center,” shared Marcio Magalhes, IT general manager at Petrobras.
From Successful Pilot to Company-Wide Rollout at Petrobras
During the pilot phase in the first quarter of 2022, the app counted 214 users and 97 incidents were registered. Petrobras is now rolling out the solution across its organization and is planning to have 10,000 live users by end of 2022.
Magalhaes underscores: “We are sure it will contribute to enhancing Petrobas Safety Standards, and we plan to roll out the application to our business segments, such as Upstream, Downstream, Production Development, and Commerce & Logistics by 2022.”
SAP BTP and SAP Environment, Health, and Safety Management provided the technological basis for building the app, digitalizing and improving the employee workflow. With the app on hand, employees can now report anomalies in real time, no matter if they work in the field, on a production site, or offshore. This brought agility, promptness, and — most importantly — a safer working environment for everyone.
Clearly, significant progress toward the company’s ambitious sustainability goals.