How Geoforce is Helping Build the “Uber for the Oilfield”

A recent Houston Chronicle article reports on a rush in the Permian Basin to become the “Uber for the Oilfield”. Being a native of West Texas that has been heavily involved in operational technologies used in the Permian for over a decade, it truly got me thinking.

We’ve all been pulled into an infamous “Corporate Planning Session” to discuss an upcoming systems integration project. When drawing up “what if” ideas, it can be easy to get far ahead of reality and what will actually work in the field. When designing new software or hardware, the list of variables seems to grow by the day and integration partners are suddenly critical to everyone’s success.

Not only are you dealing with Oil & Gas operators’ data, processes, and workforces, you have numerous service companies and their processes and workforces to integrate into a common system.

And there is no industry standard for how information needs to be presented. Instead, OEM’s are emerging with proprietary devices to report critical details such as oil life, engine coolant temperature, fuel consumption and many other engine diagnostics. Companies like Amplisine are working to automate the fluid logistics process. Many are utilizing anything from Quickbooks to SAP and Oracle to manage billing and back office work flow.

If you mapped out every company’s business process, highlighting each and every provider they utilized, no one would have the exact same combination of technology vendors. Given this, how does anyone manage this integrated (or really, unintegrated) web of systems?

Because of this inherent complexity, something like the AEMP (Association of Equipment Management Professionals) needs to emerge in Oil and Gas to define industry standards of how data should be presented. This is a big reason companies like Geotab and Geoforce have been able to gain tremendous traction. We understand the need to tap into this open platform thought process. And companies enjoy the fact Geotab has built a Market Place full of already integrated products.

Information is power. Frac pumps and the massive amount of horsepower it takes to complete a stage in the frac process hasn’t suddenly gotten cheaper. In reality, this equipment has continually risen in price. But, thankfully, technology and the systems being produced are allowing everyone to be much more efficient and thus do more with less.

Geoforce’s technology has been a big part of helping make field operations less chaotic through greater efficiencies. Since inception in 2007, Geoforce has constantly been innovating and delivering new ideas to the market.

• A few years back, no one was even close to building a satellite GPS tracking device specifically tailored to the Oil and Gas market like our GT1 Global Asset Tracker with its Class 1 Div 1 Zone 0 approval.
• When we delivered our Rental Manager and Compliance Manager modules, we were able to save companies who had hundreds or thousands of daily rentals an unbelievable amount of money by preventing missed rental days.

Geoforce’s legacy of continuous innovation has been great. But what was game changing and revolutionary a few years ago is now expected. So what excites us now is our ongoing work to continue to provide customers the next game changing product. I can’t wait to see what’s up next!

Nathan Harkey serves as Geoforce’s Regional Sales Manager for West Texas. A native of the area, Nathan has spent the last ten years serving the oil patch.