Improve Communication

Utilities companies must be in regular communication with the many third parties they deal with, such as engineers, geology firms and refineries, alongside communicating with rigs, offices, headquarters and remote workers. Video communcation solutions reduce the need to travel, allows face-to-face meetings at any time and provides the means to a faster time to response, therefore reducing costs.

Employee Traning and Retention

One manjor challenge for companies in the oil, gas and energy industry is employee retention. People spend months at remote sites, with long hours working and little contact with the outside world.

Corporate training is seen as a way to give much needed skills to these workers and a potential career path, improving retention. Video communication allows face-to-face interaction that can be held more regularly and will be more attended than normal training sessions. Remote experts can participate without the costs of travel, planning and time, and without the logistical issues caused by on site courses. Training can be recorded & played back, and include interactive technologies. Video conferencing is real-time interactive communication with collaboration ensuring a quality learning environment without geographical boundaries.

Crisis & Response Management

With workers offshore, in disaster prone areas and in politically unstable regions, improvement in crisis mangement to ensure the safety of employees is key. Communication between legal & government bodies, hospitals, fire officials and health & safety workers must be well coordinated and reliable when needed. By implementing high definition video communication solutions with VideoCentric, the proper resources can be called to the correct emergency situations.

Telemedicine to Remote Locations

Most fuel exploration sites are the homes of hundreds of workers for months at a time. There is usually limited access to healthcare, and if a worker becomes ill or injured the situation needs to be assessed locally or via the phone. Removing a worker can be very costly and the time involved in reaching the site can mean the difference between life & death.

By using video communication solutions, specialist professionals, GP's, psychiatrists and other healthcare workers can assess the situation, give regular checkups and diagnose workers quickly via high definition video images and data, which can be collected and analysed remotely.

Remote Technical Expertise

By using video conferencing, real-time data can be processed by experts and can be displayed graphically in 3D seismic models, enabling the drilling crew to be advised exactly where to drill by experts, giving onshore technicians the ability to support multiple rigs. VideoCentric and Cyviz have an exciting partnership for this situation where we offer outstanding quality 3D display walls with HD telepresence for highly collaborative environments, and these have already been implemented in some of the worlds largest energy companies.

Read about the VideoCentric and Cyviz Partnership...>>

Meet environmental targets

Oil, Gas, Energy and other utilities companies have to reduce their environmental impact which can prove to be exceedingly difficult in this sector. Video conferencing lowers a companies carbon footprint and studies show that 80% of workers and 53% of consumers prefer associating with green brands. "100 employees working at home one day a week saves the carbon equivalent of a forest the size of five football fields." If your organisation has environmental targets to meet, VideoCentric can help meet those targets by reducing travel by up to 30%, and by telecommuting, work is not disrupted by adverse weather conditions such as the recent snow, and environmental disasters such as the icelandic volcano eruptions.

With the right technology and tools, companies in the utilities and energy sector can hold life-like meeting experiences, deliver real time content and ensure security and safety of staff. By implementing solutions by VideoCentric, money, time and even lives can be saved.

Telemedicine to Remote Energy Exploration

Most remote oil exploration sites are home to dozens of workers for upwards of several months at a time. Aside from industrial staff nurses, there is usually scant access to more sophisticated medical professionals and services. When workers become ill or injured, the situation must be assessed locally or via the phone. Removing a worker from a remote site is expensive, and the time involved could mean the difference between life and death. High Definition telemedicine solutions offer vivid lifelike images and instant access to medical experts so patients can be diagnosed quickly.

Collaborative Communications

Oil companies are always looking for ways to manage communications effectively with the multitude of third parties they deal with on a regular basis. Whether it’s third-party geology firms or refineries, we have a suite of products to help provide collaboration outside of the corporate network. In the case of disaster readiness, coordination with legal and governmental bodies, hospitals, and fire and police officials is paramount to ensure that proper resources are called to an emergency situation.

Immersive telepresence is an option for command and control communication especially for organisations in the utility sector. High-quality voice communication is important whether for desktop, conference room, or mobile applications.

In order to allow more than two parties to participate in a call, a bridging solution may be required, and recording conferences requires a recording solution. All components are easily monitored and controlled from a central location using a video conferencing management application.

Quality Assurance of New Site Geology

Streamlining and enhancing the quality assurance process not only saves time and money, it reduces errors and improves customer satisfaction. It can also safeguard a company's reputation. Collaboration solutions are used for quality assurance activities such as product inspections, remote product tracking and validation tests, production line status updates and changes, and remote meetings with development, sales teams, and customers.

For the energy industry, the value or volume of a commodity is determined by the geology of samples collected at a new site. The ability to show an HD specimen to teams of geologists reduces the time, costs, and decision making in determining whether a given site sample has specific qualities as well as to see how readily a commodity can be extracted and how difficult it would be to refine. Collaborating in real time without needing to physically ship samples to and from geologists and third parties can streamline the time needed to determine whether or not a site is worth continued pursuit.

Project Management

An energy company’s ability to stay online as long as possible drives their ability to create shareholder value. With offshore or remote sites being built or existing infrastructure needing to be maintained, companies must be able to manage the tight timelines given or to ensure that a small problem doesn’t become a work stoppage. Collaboration solutions help streamline any project, from product development to course preparation to event planning to construction.

Corporate Training

One of the major challenges for oil, gas and energy companies is employee retention at the lower levels. These are people expected to spend several months at remote sites, working long hours, with little contact with the outside world and few prospects to improve their position within the company. Several energy firms are looking to corporate training as a means to give some of these lower-level employees much-needed work skills and a potential career path within the company, thereby achieving higher retention levels.

The time and cost associated with planning and implementing a training session can be excessive. Recent studies have shown that close to 50 percent of all training budgets are spent on planning and administration. Collaboration allows interactive face-to-face training sessions to be given to a widespread audience without the planning, travel, and logistical issues associated with on-site courses. Students remain engaged as if they were in a normal classroom. Real-time interactive communication with collaboration (video conferencing in particular) ensures a quality learning environment without geographical boundaries. Remote instructors can participate without the costs of travel to and from a training location. With immersive video technologies such as RPX, instructors can teach a class as if they were in a classroom—standing up and roaming around. Using recording and streaming solutions allows courses to be streamed live or recorded, stored, and viewed on demand.

Immersive Telepresence

Immersive telepresence solutions are ideal for executive level briefings or corporate board meetings where face-to-face interactions are required. Executives at oil firms can meet with their refiners, partners or local government officials regarding production caps, price fluctuations etc. Systems such as the Polycom RPX and the Cisco 3010 are suitable for immersive telepresence solutions.

Collaborative Display Walls

Cyviz, the leading manufacturer of premium display walls for collaborative environments such as oil, gas and energy, and VideoCentric have recently formed an exciting partnership to offer collaboration of Telepresence technologies with High Definition, 3D technologies and high class display walls. Whether a geologist, engineer, executive in the boardroom or government official, visualisation walls are becoming the tool of choice and necessity of modelling, manupulating, collaborating and communicating results. Collaborative displays such as the Cyviz C1 or the Cyviz Bizwall are perfect for the energy industry and have already begun rolling out across the world with some of the largest energy companies.

Portable All-In-One Units

Video conferencing solutions can provide high definition customer experiences across distance, and in an industry where face-to-face, personal relationships are key to success, VideoCentric have suitable solutions to bring utilities and energy sector organisations together.

HD Video is becoming widely used in the energy industry in a number of ways beyond travel reduction. By being able to share content and utilise things like HD document cameras, energy firms can consult with headquarters or contracted geologists regarding quality and quantity found. Telemedicine and training are also becoming strong users of video on site.

Specialised Video Conferencing Systems

For telemedicine and working on oil rigs, some video communication solutions are better suited to the job than others. Manufacturers have produced video conferencing systems that are specifically suited to specific jobs such as the Cisco Intern and the Polycom Mobile Responder.

Audio Conferencing

From a single phone line and wireless communications to large installed voice systems, audio conferencing solutions make audio sounds crisp, clear and natural. IP phone connectivity between headquarters, local governments, and remote locations provide high quality, reliable, cost effective commmunications.

HD quality sound ensures accuracy and full comprehension, which is critical in the energy sector.

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