Management information systems software evaluation

Conference · Wed Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:113361

Al-Tunisi, N; Ghazzawi, A; Gruyaert, F; Clarke, D ^[1]

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1. Saudi Aramco, Dhahran (Saudi Arabia). Process and Control Systems Dept.

In November 1993, Saudi Aramco management endorsed a proposal to coordinate the development of the Management Information Systems (MISs) of four concurrent projects for its facilities Controls Modernization Program. The affected projects were the Ras Tanura Refinery Upgrade Project, the Abqaiq Plant Controls Modernization and the Shedgum and Uthmaniyah Gas plants Control Upgrade Projects. All of these projects had a significant requirement of MISs in their scope. Under the leadership of the Process and Control Systems Department, and MIS Coordination Team was formed with representatives of several departments. An MIS Applications Evaluation procedure was developed based on the Kepner Tregoe Decisions Analysis Process and general questionnaires were sent to over a hundred potential Vendors. The applications were divided into several categories, such as: Data Capture and Historization, Human User Interface, Trending, Reporting, Graphic Displays, Data Reconciliation, Statistical Analysis, Expert Systems, Maintenance Applications, Document Management and Operations Planning and Scheduling. For each of the MIS Application areas, detailed follow-up questionnaires were used to short list the candidate products. In May and June 1994, selected Vendors were invited to Saudi Arabia for an Exhibition which was open to all Saudi Aramco employees. In conjunction with this, the Vendors were subjected to a rigorous product testing exercise by independent teams of testers. The paper will describe the methods used and the lessons learned in this extensive software evaluation phase, which was a first for Saudi Aramco.

• OSTI ID: 113361
• Report Number(s): CONF-950310--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
03 NATURAL GAS
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
DESIGN
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
MANAGEMENT
NATURAL GAS PROCESSING PLANTS
PETROLEUM REFINERIES
SAUDI ARABIA