Rostering & Scheduling Success Story

Cru Software prepares Origin Energy for growth

At a glance

Origin Energy is a familiar name to many and is most commonly associated with the energy, oil, and gas sectors. In terms of the use of Cru Software, our work with Origin Energy was primarily focused on their gas team, utilising the platform.

With the market often experiencing high demand for gas, Origin needs to meet the demand using its Wells located in Western Queensland. With Wells having a limited lifespan, once the Wells depreciate, new Wells need to be drilled. This process further leaves Origin staff away from head offices and in remote parts of Australia.

Along with drilling new Wells, other challenges arise, which include increased maintenance as a result of a larger number of Well sites, with breakdown and connection works all done remotely in the field by a large volume of staff.

Origin Energy

The Challenges

In a snapshot

  • Inefficient rostering and scheduling
    • Processes were paper-driven and manual, especially when it came to creating rosters and schedules.
  • Rostering across office and field workers needed to be consolidated into a single product and linked to field activity schedules on both a
    short- and long-term basis
  • Multiple disparate systems combined with the rollout of a new ERP system
  • A 6-week maintenance schedule was planned, with 70% to 80% scheduled and a little room for last-minute changes and priorities (break-ins and correctives)
Website Images for copy and image templates 850 x 574 (1)

The challenge that Origin faced prior to connecting with Cru Software, according to Asset Technology Lead Shaynne Ford, was finding a “scheduling solution in Origin to support how we were going to best plan and execute work.” With over 2000 Wells currently, this task was massive! Origin was desperately seeking software with full integration. Something that could be utilised as a part of their decision-making and planning.

Shaynne said, "5 years ago, Origin decided that they needed to start thinking about the future and what our workforce for the future potentially looked like”, which is the catalyst for connecting with Cru and trying out an integrated workforce management software, that would enable Origin to grow.

Origin was not completely flying blind when the team from Cru Software came on board to assist them. After initially commencing workforce management for maintenance scheduling and rostering using an  Excel spreadsheet, Origin had moved forward and was using an ERP software solution to help manage some aspects of their business. Shaynne Ford describes this ERP Software as a “stock standard off the shelf kind of product” and furthers explains that the product wasn’t meeting Origin’s needs, particularly in terms of data, with Shaynne suggesting that the product “wasn’t a data-rich driven solution.”

CRU Rostering laptop and iphoneThe solution

Cru Software, particularly Cru Rostering and Cru Scheduling, has significantly impacted Origin's business. As indicated by Shaynne, the automated workforce management solution will enable origin to expand with the company “looking to go from 2000 wells to 5000 wells in the coming years.”

Shaynne describes the transition from the previous “very manual process”, to one that is more “streamlined and integrated” as having significant positive impacts in terms of planning and scheduling, particularly in terms of maintenance.

Shaynne states that having Cru Software come into the business has “allowed for us to complete integrations to other data-rich sources, so that we are pulling all that information into Cru Scheduling”, with Shaynne also indicating that this process was extremely beneficial in “supporting the decision making that we need when prioritising work.”

Shaynne also describes the other benefits of Cru Software as being extremely attractive to businesses looking to streamline their processes and said, “being able to streamline and bring them all into the solution helps to make decision making faster and that process more streamlined.”

Benefits

Key Results

Cru Software deployed CRU Rostering & Scheduling at Origin, enabling them to easily and quickly visualise and schedule thousands of operational and maintenance activities throughout their CSG fields. 

The solution allowed Origin to consolidate rostering into one product (across both office and field workers) and link closely with activity scheduling in-field (using the mobile app) to deliver improvements in both administration time, scheduling time and efficiency.

Additionally, the solution allows for the optimisation and scheduling of maintenance work for long- and short-term horizons. Optimisation of work in the long term allows for finding high-value alignment and sheltering opportunities through the network.

Origin can now visualise high priority and high-impacting work over the long term to ensure large shutdown events are managed efficiently. 

What's next?

For Origin, expansion and increasing their gas Wells in Western Queensland are on the cards over the next few years, and with the right workforce management tools and software now in place, the sky is clearly the limit for them.
  

Would Origin Energy recommend Cru Software?

"Yes," says Shaynne, adding that the ability to configure Cru Rostering and Cru Scheduling software led to what she calls a "really good partnership" between Origin and Cru Software, with "being able to configure it was one of the most attractive features of workforce management software if our business changed or pivoted."


Did you know of 85% of Excel spreadsheets contain errors?

Learn more →


Find out more


Why are over 90,000 workers using Cru Rostering?

A rostering app that’s simple to use and built with your workers in mind, and focuses solely on making sure your workers are where they need to be when they need to be there. It removes outdated communication processes and simplifies workflows for your rostering teams. 

I'm interested →