If you follow the oil and gas industry, then you know that you can only be as efficient as your vendors allow you to be.  Even though your vendor list may be in the hundreds, if one or two crucial deliveries are a few hours late, it can cost your company thousands in lost revenue.  Until now, it has been assumed that this is the daily reality of the oil and gas supply chain but if you multiply inefficiencies on a quarterly scale, it is easy to see how much money your business could lose.  In the current economic environment, why is this acceptable?  Ryan Hunt, Founder & CEO of Rig CallOut, explains how he envisions oilfield logistics and supply chain changing and how centralized software for all vendors is the key to keeping businesses viable, profitable and on time.

Discovering the Problem

After 9 years working in the oilfield working as a project manager, Ryan learned the ins and outs of supply chain logistics but despite enjoying his job, he was consumed by the long hours and being on call 24 hours a day.  He found that supply chain inefficiencies were affecting the productivity in his work and that he was spending much of his time chasing vendors.  He asked himself, “why is it I can find any Apple product I own, anywhere in the world in 10 seconds; but I cannot find out where $1,000,000 worth of pipe is traveling across the country with smartphones in the cab of the truck?” 

With so many suppliers using different fleet systems, Ryan was spending 60-70% of his day managing the last mile of freight deliveries by attempting to contact drivers by phone.  It was at this point that he realized that there had to be a more well-organized and professional method to managing logistical aspects of oilfield delivery systems from the second an order was placed to the exact moment it was delivered to a rig site.

The Soluton: Rig CallOut

Enter Rig CallOut.  “We believe proactive business is way better than reactive,” says Ryan.  “The last thing we need to de be doing is giving our customers more work to do.  We have built it (Rig CallOut) so you can quickly look at your phone and know everything that is happening.  Where are my trucks?  Are they behind?  Are they broken down or late?  Has the delivery process started yet?  Do we have signed bills of lading?” 

Having an oilfield background has proven to be an advantage for Ryan and after years of being the point man for on-site deliveries, he meticulously drafted all dashboard mockups for Rig CallOut despite having no tech experience of his own.  This allowed for another unexpected dividend – the capability of the new dashboard to be viewed in layman’s terms – simple and to the point.  Rig CallOut’s dashboard is a one hundred thousand foot view of your supply chain and it is built so the user can quickly glance between tasks and know exactly what is happening without making a single phone call.  

By using the native Rig CallOut Android and iOS apps directly on your phone or tablet, monitoring a supply chain can be done in real time.  Though still a new application, the dashboard was built using a multitude of user feedback to ensure that the app has been improved in the right areas.  Ryan released the app to a select user base when it was roughly 70% complete to ensure that the remaining 30% could be built with this feedback in mind. 

“People will come to us and say that they are not even looking for products like Rig CallOut because they did not believe that there was a solution to supply chain problem.  These are just normal day in/day out problems to them and we have just walked in with a solution for those problems,” boasts Ryan.  Industry experts are now theorizing that with supply chain management being monitored in real time, every hour of downtime on a drilling rig could be spent resourcefully instead of wastefully – based on load arrival times.

Phase Two of Rig CallOut

Phase two of Rig CallOut’s software development is now underway with a full analytics suite being incorporated into the existing dashboard.  With plans to release this new package in 2020, businesses will now be able to understand the analytical side of their supply chain.  With the ability to confidently oversee the “on time rate” of all vendor deliveries, any oilfield business will be able to save thousands in operating costs in both the short and long term. 

“We understand the culture and the way that operators use our platform and we see it on the supply side and the trucking side,” Ryan continues.  “What’s fascinating is that we have the luxury of going in and talking to operators, service & supply guys and trucking companies and we know that there are different perceptions of performance.”  

Ryan also stresses that you do not have to be an industry giant to get the most out of Rig CallOut’s software.  If all vendors are operating under one application, then there is less ambiguity around fleet specific apps and there is less to learn and master for drivers that may not be tech savvy. 

Ryan now emphasizes that in the last month of using Rig CallOut, “adoption rates for drivers were 100% and they are near 100% for this month as well.  Rates are high because any trucking company can work with any supplier and their data is safe because Rig CallOut is a third party, and we are at arm’s length.”  Simply put, Rig CallOut is unpretentious, efficient and effective – three keys to flawless communication and profitability in a competitive oilfield environment.

Connect with Rig CallOut

Are logistics and organization of interest and do you thrive when everything is in one place?  Are you keen to unite vendors, trucking companies and end users on one dashboard?  From real time notifications to up to the minute ETA’s and full load traceability, RigCallOut might be the solution for your business.  Learn more at www.rigcallout.com.