In an address to the Society of Petroleum Engineers, (SPE) Dr. Ibrahim S.Mishari, VP of Information Technology at Saudi Aramco explained that earlier this year the firm needed to replace its old, inflexible, expensive-to-maintain mainframes with a more modern and flexible client-server environment.

It also needed to replace a large number of applications written to obsolete languages and to standardize the use of off-the-shell software and integrate interfaced stand-alone systems into one comprehensive system to ensure the company had consistent, easily retrievable data and standardized business processes across organizational boundaries worldwide.
Saudi Aramco found the solution in SAP, an enterprise resource planning system and collection of applications that can be used to manage a company’s entire business.  SAP streamlines data management and storage into one seamless, integrated.
At Saudi Aramco, SAP integrates data from Sales, Production, Human Resources, Logistics and Finance, along with many other enterprise functions, allowing them to share a common database and set of business analysis tools.
“This integration gives us flexibility and efficiency that could not be achieved before, “he said. Currently, more than 23,000 company employees tap into the system from nearly every business line and administration area.
Citing several examples of integration, Mishari described Human Resources as well as other areas that benefit from SAP.
The hydrocarbon management area captures domestic product demand and tracks the production and availability of products.  SAP’s Project Systems and investment Management modules administer the financial aspects of capital project.
“With SAP, we are now able to store information on both approved and nonapproved or deferred projects,” he said. “With all project information in one place, status tracking, analysis and reporting capabilities have been improved.
“About 17,000 companies have implemented SAP around the world,” Mishari said. “While few companies have more users than Saudi Aramco, very few are as centralized or have implemented such a broad range of SAP functions.  Our implementation has been one of the largest of its kind in the world. SAP has become our preferred applications platform, and we will continually enhance it and preferentially use SAP to develop new business solutions as they are defined by our business users.”