Measurement Milestones Part 4 – Fast Track to the Future

Measurement Milestones Part 4 – Fast Track to the Future

In my last two posts on the major milestones leading to the next generation of measurement data management I’ve focused on the past and current contexts that demand change in measurement software and the market forces that are accelerating pivotal change.  And in an earlier post I defined what the final destination looks like not in terms of functionality but the values it should represent for measurement users.  Today, I’d like to start talking specifically about what the future of measurement data management will be and how W Energy Software is getting there faster than you might think.

To understand how we’re putting our measurement product (WE Measure) on a fast track for commercial release in 2021, it is helpful to look at the W Energy Software ERP platform as a whole, which has been steadily built out over the last 10 years on the cloud following a meticulously designed product roadmap.  W Energy Software has a complete ecosystem of software applications powering the entire value chain.  For upstream, this includes purpose-built accounting and general ledger, land management, production operations, and regulatory solutions.  On the midstream side, W Energy Software drives key workflows for financial accounting, plant accounting, liquids and gas transportation, terminal management, and marketing.

W Energy Software’s application architecture has a couple of big advantages over the dozens of legacy and poorly integrated solutions still relied on by energy companies.  The cloud and W Energy Software architecture drive down costs significantly.  A unified ERP means that applications and workflows share a common and consistent dataset, which eliminates redundancies, manual data management, and human error.  And a unified platform means that applications share a common and intuitive user interface.

Measurement data management cuts across all of W Energy Software’s products up and down the value chain, from the wellhead, tanks, and field tickets through gathering, processing, storage, and points of sale for hydrocarbon products.  All of these have meters and other data acquisition systems.

We’re not starting from scratch.  Right out of the gate, WE Measure leverages an advanced technology base to fast track development, including a data infrastructure that is already plumbed into our existing client’s ERP solutions.  And the fact is, we’ve already been in the measurement business for quite a while in some areas and have built industry-leading capabilities, such as W Energy Software’s allocations engine, meter management, and field data capture.  Our user interface is already designed and we’re also able to seamlessly incorporate functionality from across W Energy Software’s extensive ERP suite (Asset Builder, Calculation Trace, Show Association Graph, etc.).  That’s the beauty and power of a unified software architecture.

The upshot for WE Measure is that the data pipelines, UI, and core components are already built, which enables us to bypass years of development work and enter the fast lane at full throttle.  WE Measure version 1.0 is well on the road to being commercially available next year with features the measurement community needs, including data editing, audit trails, historicization, ticket management, volume balancing, validation, and flexible, self-service reporting.  That’s just the tip of the iceberg of what can be expected in WE Measure!    As a next-generation measurement data management solution, WE Measure is being built on the cloud with the relentless innovation and commitment to client success W Energy Software is well known for.  This means reliable, lightning-fast processing times and an endless flow of new capabilities.

Importantly, the W Energy Software platform and WE Measure are agile, enabling us to pivot and adapt as the needs of the measurement community evolve.  This brings us to the final milestone in the journey to the future of measurement data management where we are centering everything we do around the voice of the measurement user and partnering with energy companies to ensure what we build is what the industry truly needs. Interested energy companies are invited to join the Measurement Product Consortium to provide direct input and receive product discounts.