WellPoint Systems' Blog

CALGARY, Alberta – June 14, 2010 – WellPoint Systems Inc., (TSX-V:WPS), provider of software and solutions designed to transform complex data into business insight for oil and gas industry executives, is participating in a global effort to bring together two strategic objectives: Industry Focus and Technology Direction.

The Microsoft Upstream Reference Architecture Initiative will develop on-going consensus for an information technology (IT) framework for the global upstream oil and gas industry. Created in close alignment with Microsoft Corp. and its widespread ecosystem of industry software vendor and systems integrator partners, this initiative is an ongoing collaborative effort to create a common architectural approach to IT to further the flow of information across all upstream business units. This design enables multiple parties using numerous technologies to work together efficiently, integrating business applications, processes, people and data to facilitate more consistent workflows across and within organizations.

“WellPoint Systems brings a unique blend of industry expertise and technology innovation to the Microsoft Upstream Reference Architecture Initiative,” said Ali Ferling, managing director of Worldwide Oil and Gas Industries at Microsoft. “With its focus on back office operations within an upstream oil and gas company, WellPoint’s commitment to this architecture will help its customers realize major productivity gains through the integration of business processes, people and workflows across upstream business units.”

“We are committed to the Microsoft Upstream Reference Architecture Initiative as a solid foundation for offering integrated solutions that extend the business value of IT investments to our customers. This framework provides a clear direction to the industry that ensures ISVs & SIs can expand products and services within a broad alliance,” said Michael Weiss, senior vice president of products and technology for WellPoint Systems. “Our customers will benefit from more choice when selecting business critical solutions, and the confidence to know that these solutions will work together into the future.”

Click here to read more about the Microsoft initiative.

Catherine Madden, Senior Research Analyst for IDC Insights, recently blogged about her opportunity to speak at an executive breakfast briefing hosted by WellPoint Systems in Houston, Texas regarding the value being delivered from the digital oil field. While most of the largest oil and gas companies in the world have a digital oil field strategy, the vision and approach varies by company. As the application of the digital oil field has matured, a clearer picture is developing on best practices, but what continues to elude companies is metrics for the return on investment (ROI). Click here to read more:

CALGARY, Aug. 26– WellPoint Systems Inc. announced yesterday the release of the WellPoint Intelligent Dashboard. The WellPoint Intelligent Dashboard gives users easy point and click access to critical industry and company data – all from a single, central point of access. It places powerful analytical reports and key performance indicators (KPI’s) directly into the hands of executives and operations personnel who need to accurately measure financial, lease and production activity and performance.

“The Dashboard is a very important addition to the WellPoint line of products,” said Richard Slack, President and CEO of WellPoint. “Research has shown that companies actively using dashboards are achieving higher performance than their peers and adding this feature to our product offering highlights our ongoing commitment to providing solutions that help our customers run their businesses better.”

The Dashboard uses SQL Reporting Services and cube technology to aggregate data and measurements from WellPoint’s software as well as third party applications. The system utilizes WellPoint’s data and a standard SQL Datastore to produce Business Intelligence objects. Customers can easily connect to their data in the WellPoint systems and any other SQL compliant system, allowing them to create intelligent dashboards, providing analysis and insightful reports in just a few clicks.

For further information

Richard Slack, President and Chief Executive Officer, (303) 987-2238, rick.slack@wellpointsystems.com
Bharat Mahajan, CA, Chief Financial Officer, (403) 444-3916, bharat.mahajan@wellpointsystems.com

WellPoint Systems presented “The Digital Oilfield: Is It Hitting Rock Bottom?” today at the Houstonian Hotel, where Catherine Madden, Senior Research Analyst for IDC Insights, discussed trends in the oil and gas digital field and challenges companies are facing.

The underlying question of more and more oil and gas companies today is, Is the digital oil field dead?
Madden’s answer is simply, no.

“The digital oil field is critical to the industry’s achievement now and in the future. How it is viewed is shifting, but it’s not dead,” said Madden. She went on to explain that the post-recession industry has been making a cautious recovery, but most fundamentals are getting stronger, even in the shadows of the latest business challenges such as the changing environment, human capital, collaboration, data management, and intelligent energy.

Madden emphasized the comparison of what the digital oil field looked like before and what it has become; there is now an increased focus on industry standardization and real time data exchange. She says that standards enable integration across all domains and facilitate the management of assets through the life cycle, which has brought recent success to companies like ExxonMobil.

“With embedded IT into business units, it is not just a cost center; it is an efficient collaboration,” affirms Madden. Her charge to the industry is to find a way to connect your organization through the improvement of integrative data and open standards.

Even in times like these, where the oil and gas community is recovering from tragedy in the Gulf and pressure on IT is greater, the digital oil field is alive and necessary.

“You have to have systems that optimize data collected,” Madden said, “Data can be your best friend.”

Despite the unfortunate accident in the Gulf of Mexico, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll suggests that public support for expanding offshore drilling is remaining solid. According to the Wall Street Journal, “six in 10 respondents…carried out from May 6 to May 10 said they backed more drilling for oil off the United States coast.” Gulf state respondents were more inclined to support additional offshore drilling; 63 percent of them said they would even approve of more rigs.

WSJ also reports that “many respondents said they wanted to see offshore drilling controlled in some way, but appeared confident that the risk of future accidents could be reduced and any damage from them limited.”

As the Gulf spill has already began to shape the future of the industry, it also is beginning to serve as a factor in upcoming political races.

To read more on how industry leaders are responding to the spill, read here

WellPoint Systems will present “The Digital Oilfield: Is It Hitting Rock Bottom?” on Tuesday, May 18 at the Houstonian Hotel. Come listen as Catherine Madden, Senior Research Analyst for IDC Insights, discusses trends in the oil and gas digital field, and how oil and gas companies are measuring bottom line returns with specific examples from BP, Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil. As opposed to focusing on the usual oil field topics, this presentation will focus on bottom line results.

The morning will begin at 7:30 at the Houstonian, and breakfast will be served. Please RSVP to Jenny Olvera at jenny.olvera@wellpointsystems.com or at 713-850-1812 x400 as soon as possible.

We hope to see you there

This week, almost 70 American oil and gas workers are talking to policymakers about the vitality of America’s strong domestic oil industry to our economic future and the creation of jobs. The workers on Capitol Hill include geolists, landmen, rig workers, petroleum engineers, and others from fifteen states, all discussing the potential of vast shale gas resources.

Jack Gerard, API President and CEO, has addressed the issues arising from Congress’ consideration of policies that will be impacting these workers’ lives. According to Gerard, Congress will be making major decisions in upcoming months, and it needs to hear the voices of the American workers who greatly depend on the oil and gas industry.

Read more about how workers are bringing their stories to Washington this week at: http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=91748

WellPoint Systems is pleased to announce the recent launch of its Enterprise Asset Management solution.  Powered by Microsoft Dynamics AX, DAXEAM is an enterprise asset maintenance solution that manages the complete asset life cycle. DAXEAM is fully integrated with Dynamics AX, providing equipment and asset maintenance to AX customers in asset intensive industries.

DAXEAM is designed and built from the ground up as a true ‘enterprise’ maintenance solution for Dynamics AX. DAXEAM takes advantage of the power of Dynamics AX providing a single, seamless environment for users and eliminating costly and inefficient integrations. DAXEAM works with Dynamics AX – not against it – thereby maximizing a company’s ability to affect true enterprise-wide efficiencies. As a native Dynamics AX module, there is nothing extra to build, customize or maintain. From the first day, users will be working in a single, familiar Dynamics AX environment.

“DAXEAM is the best example of how an integrated, AX based, Enterprise Asset Management solution can deliver value to our end customers in asset intensive industries, said Martin Wildsmith, Business Development Director at Eclipse – a Dynamics AX Partner of the Year Finalist.   

DAXEAM provides the user with a single point of data entry, single source of records for vendors, inventory, assets and more.  A unified environment between maintenance operations and the back office for security, logistics, workflow and reporting enables true ‘enterprise’ asset management.

As a native Dynamics AX module, DAXEAM uses familiar, standard AX navigation, therefore users are instantly comfortable in navigating and using DAXEAM. IT staff can support and maintain DAXEAM with little added overhead as DAXEAM is a native Dynamics AX module; even security profiles are common between DAXEAM and AX.

Most ‘standalone’ equipment maintenance solutions require costly and inherently complex integrations. Duplicate databases are required for important corporate data such as vendor files, purchase orders, inventory, receiving and matching. DAXEAM eliminates these costly, inherently risky integration points. DAXEAM shares vendors, purchasing, inventory and receiving with Dynamics AX. There are no multiple data entry points, no need to ‘synchronize’ files and no need to create costly data reconciliations between two systems. DAXEAM is a true ‘Enterprise’ asset maintenance solution.

DAXEAM exists to serve the following industries: Aerospace, Forestry, Public Sector, Forestry, Pulp, Paper, Food and Beverage, Plant Maintenance, Metals and Mining, Oil and Gas, Facilities Management, and Fleet Maintenance. 

Beginning this Saturday, April 24^th-27^th, DAXEAM will make its premiere appearance at the Microsoft 2010 Convergence Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the leading Microsoft Dynamics event, where anyone can experience the industry in action! DAXEAM will be showcased at Booth 1311, so come by to be introduced to the “AX Solution for Maintenance.”

Good news for the U.S. drilling industry. This week, the number of oil and gas drilling rigs has increased, according to data from oil-field services company Baker Hughes Inc. Even as gas prices have lowered recently, the number of gas rigs rose by 15 rigs since last week. Gas rigs in use peaked in September of 2008 at 1,606, but fell last year as the weak demand of the economy forced gas prices to lower by 29 percent. Despite this fact, drilling has been exponentially more active recently. Producers must continue to drill by a certain date, within two of three years of acquiring their lease.

“Natural gas for May delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange was recently up 9 cents, or 2.26%, at $4.075 a million British thermal units,” reports Dow Jones.

Social media is playing a larger role in the growth of all types of businesses, the expansion of their markets, and the depth of relationships with constituents. In 2008, the Gillbane Group created a report on how social media has established itself to be the link from “today’s experiences to tomorrow’s opportunities.”

Now that we have arrived in 2010, you can imagine how social media has taken off since 2008 and wonder why all businesses and individuals are not jumping on board. According to the Gillbane Group report, this expansion of social media outlets has enabled a new generation of information-sharing, new technologies such as blogs and networks, and relationship building. There is an ease of “use and simplicity” that has lead to fast adoption from all markets. Businesses and organizations are further utilizing these tactics in effort to connect to their partners internally and externally.

WellPoint has benefitted from the use of these media tactics, and continues to find ways to keep its constituents up to date on happenings within the industry and the company itself through weekly blogs, frequent Tweets, updating Facebook, and keeping LinkedIn discussions flowing.

As a company that strongly believes in the benefits of social media, WellPoint Systems encourages everyone to get connected with its networks:

· Blog: http://wellpointsystems.com/blog/

· LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1818854&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

· Twitter: http://twitter.com/wellpointsystem

· Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/WellPoint-Systems-IT-Department/275323446413?ref=nf

Get connected!

To read the Gillbane Group report, see http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/e0bec654-7d83-2b10-19a9-adcaeb9fb04d