BP Group

Company: Quillion DatabridgeCustomer: BP GroupSubmitted by: HarvardThe BP Group is one of the world’s largest petroleum and petrochemical groups. Its main activities are exploration, production and distribution of crude oil, natural gas and petrochemicals but it also has a growing activity in solar power generation. BP has well-established operations in Europe North and South America, Australasia and Africa.

In order to maintain its position at the forefront of the industry BP invests heavily in the future and spends up to $12 billion p.a. in the development of new business opportunities. Capitalising on existing information is a key element in making these a success and to developing market share.With over 1000 projects underway around the world at any one time BP has plenty of information to draw upon.

The problem, however, lies in the fact that this information is scattered throughout the world, residing in differing databases of varying structures, each governed by their own set of rules. Until recently the only way to collect data on a global level was by manually re-entering data into a separate database. This proved to be an expensive, time-consuming and unreliable solution. Furthermore, different data structures also made it extremely difficult to determine the nature and extent of the data that was available across BP’s huge diversity of projects.Quillion’s DataBridge will enable BP to access a wide variety of data without disturbing existing systems and formats and without having to build new consolidated databases.

Crucially, DataBridge does not physically relocate any data but constructs a logical model that pulls the required information from wherever it is located to answer business-driven queries. It will also allow BP to reach data which was previously inaccessible or invisible to business users who did not understand the database structure. It will also support the comparison of data from a number of different sources.”The frustrations in extrapolating relevant information for individual ventures proved that it was necessary for us to look for a radical solution,” said Tony Atkins, President of Group Technology, BP. “DataBridge’s intelligent software allows us to access data without disturbing the existing sources. It is easy to use and enables us to compare and assemble information as and when we require it.

We are now able to analyse information which previously was beyond our reach.”