Excellence Awards 2017: Shell - Icon of Analytics

[JulieH]

Author: Dan Jeavons, GM Advanced Analytics Centre of Excellence

Team Members: 

Roel Esselink, Aaron Levis, Dennis Vallinga, Chris Bridge, Phil Ochs, Feliciano Gonzalez, Bryce Bartmann, Ciaran Doherty, Heather Stevens, Evgenia Domnenkova, Amjad Chaudry, Zoe Moore, Pawel Dobrowolski, Melissa Patel, Deval Pandya; Hariharasudhan Ramani, Wayne Jones

Company: Shell

Awards Category: Icon of Analytics

Shell is a global group of energy and petrochemical companies.

Our operations are divided into: Upstream, Integrated Gas and New Energies, Downstream, and Projects & Technology.

In Upstream we focus on exploration for new liquids and natural gas reserves.

In Integrated Gas and New Energies, we focus on liquefying natural gas (LNG) and converting gas to liquids (GTL) The New Energies business has been established to explore and invest in new low-carbon opportunities.

In Downstream, we focus on turning crude oil into a range of refined products. In addition, we produce and sell petrochemicals for industrial use worldwide.

Shell purchased the Alteryx platform 2 years ago. The tool has been made available as part of their Shell’s Advanced Analytics Lab, (essentially their data science workbench). Alteryx demand has grown significantly – quickly becoming the most popular tool in the toolbox being used by 88% of lab users across multiple Shell business units. The variety of applications is staggering – here are just a few examples:

1. Shell Downstream Lubricants Supply Chain uses Alteryx to assist with the assurance of the integrated business value provided through the supply chain. They have used Alteryx to develop a Supply Chain Excellence award winning suite of tools which provide critical information on inventory, margin, forecast accuracy and blending options. These tools have taken previously manual processes built in Excel & R into fully automated end to end workflows making quality data available far faster than was previously possible.

2. Shell Downstream Trading Compliance team using Alteryx enabled capability for monitoring operations across multiple markets, achieving compliance with current regulations and creating transferability as markets and regulations develop.

3. Shell Exploration had a highly manual process for analysing information coming back from exploration drilling campaigns.  Using Alteryx, they have constructed a “New Well Portal” where various subject matter experts can come to understand future extraction opportunities.

4. Shell Contracting & Procurement uses predictive analysis in Alteryx as part of a solution to optimise the ordering, storage and utilisation of pieces of spare part inventory ranging from well heads to pipeline parts. The project paid for itself in 4 weeks and continues to deliver millions of dollars to the bottom line.

5. Shell Downstream Retail is just starting on their Alteryx journey, using Alteryx to digest multiple data info sources and “transform” manual monthly process into accurate, error-free and automated reporting around of the performance of their marketing campaigns

In addition, Shell has been working closely with Alteryx as a co-innovation partner, driving the development of products like Alteryx Connect, and developing a platform eco-system with other innovative partners like DVW, Maana and Databricks to accelerate the development of their advanced analytics platform as part of their digitalisation journey.