SAP Mergers and Acquisitions: What does a Maintenance Manager need?

Mergers and Acquisitions in Oil and Gas - Maintenance Manager

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In my first blog of this series “SAP Mergers and Acquisitions: How to Meet the Needs of Both the Buyer and the Seller, I took the perspective of an executive-level team involved in an upstream SAP mergers and acquisitions event. I did this for both the buying organisation and the selling organisation. The blog identified key mechanics in the IT transition workstream that could keep the executive team awake at night.

 
This second blog in the series adopts the hat of the Maintenance Manager. It considers the critical success factors that will determine if the IT transition workstream in the M&A project has been a success.
 
In the next blog, I’ll adopt the hat of Supply Chain Manager and look at that same question. And in the very last blog post of this M&A series, I will revisit the requirements of the executive-level team identified throughout the seriesThis will include the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Information Officer, Finance Director, Operations Director, Maintenance Manager, and Supply Chain ManagerI will explain how to address their requirements by securing a successful asset transition IT workstream
 
Follow Absoft on LinkedIn to keep up to date with our ongoing SAP Mergers and Acquisitions blog post series. 
 

Putting on the (hard) hat of the Maintenance Manager

Executive-level individuals drive the objectives for an SAP mergers and acquisitions transition. Adhering to the dates of the Sales & Purchase Agreement will be critical. Securing safety and securing production levels is also critical. But, what else will the Maintenance Manager be looking for?
 
  • Safe operations are imperative in upstream oil and gas. It is crucial to retain the history of maintenance work performed on the transitioned assets.

 

  • Another requirement is the migration of historical FRACAS (Failure Reporting Analysis and Corrective Action System) data and condition data. It must also be readily available to the buyer maintenance team. This is especially true for Safety Critical Elements. The “readily available” reference in the previous sentence is important. The maintenance team cannot be forced to review data in two or more IT systems to achieve a “maintenance book of record” view of an equipment’s history. Maintaining asset history in one place is key.
 
  • The backlog of open work orders must be made available in the new system. This is very important from a safety and operational efficiency perspective. It ensures that there are no gaps in the maintenance programme.
 
  • One area which always bears due diligence in a maintenance transition is maintenance plansBoth calendar-based and periodic are important here. It is critical to ensure that there are no gaps in maintenance frequencies because of the transition. We need to protect the system knowledge that we are in year 4 of a 5-year lifeboat overhaul schedule. Resetting or altering the maintenance clock during the transition could have deadly results.
ERP Mergers and Acquisitions Case Study Oil and Gas
 

Computerised Maintenance Management Systems

A topic I would have written more about 10 years ago would have been training and change management. The acceptable timeframes for M&A transitions used to be around 9-12 months. This meant that changing out the CMMS might be an option. Changing out the CMMS is of course a big deal. It involves change management implications of training a large, rota-based maintenance workforce in a new system. Current M&A transition timeframes are half what they used to be. In most cases, this now means that the CMMS is retained. Likewise, the training and change management requirements are mitigated. In other words, the challenges of CMMS implementation deserve a blog series in its own right.
 
The last topic I will focus on is system downtime. If we are retaining the CMMS there is downtime. The system transfers from the seller’s infrastructure onto the buyer’s infrastructure. This implies a system outage. Whilst business continuity-based contingency procedures will exist, the window in which maintenance can be run on spreadsheets or paper is limited.
 
The risks of seldom deployed paper or spreadsheet-based processes grow exponentially over time. Any ongoing lack of access to critical maintenance history compromises decision-making. Subsequently, this impacts safety.
 
Any CMMS downtime or outage should last no longer than a weekend. Otherwise, we start to risk safety and operational efficiency. IT solutions that shorten this downtime window become imperative. I will discuss solutions that address this and the other requirements described earlier in this blog, in the final blog of this series.
 

Key considerations for a Maintenance Manager during an SAP Mergers and Acquisitions transition

This blog has attempted to capture some of the key considerations for a Maintenance Manager involved in an SAP mergers and acquisitions transition. They have revolved around securing safe and efficient operations during the transition. Subsequently, this maximises the success of the transition for everyone involved.
 
The next blog will see me taking off the hard hat of the Maintenance Manager and assuming the role of Supply Chain Manager. It will consider what they are looking for in a successful SAP mergers and acquisitions transition. 
 
Blog post by Don Valentine, Absoft’s Commercial Director.
ERP Mergers and Acquisitions Case Study Oil and Gas

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