The Challenge
Weatherford International Ltd. (NYSE / Euronext Paris / SIX:WFT) is one of the largest global providers of advanced products and services that span the drilling, evaluation, completion, production and intervention cycles of oil and natural gas wells. Weatherford employs more than 50,000 employees worldwide, operates in more than 100 countries to include 125 globally distributed manufacturing facilities supporting 900 service bases and 16 technology development and training facilities.
Today’s Weatherford is a result of internal growth and innovation as well as the consolidation of more than 250 strategic acquisitions. From a strategic standpoint, Weatherford has two key objectives—efficiency and productivity. Weatherford strives for efficiency, both in terms of delivering results for its clients as well as leveraging its worldwide infrastructure. The ultimate goal in both cases is to help reduce costs and increase well productivity. Weatherford has also created a more streamlined organizational structure to continue a push towards greater individual productivity levels through more intensive recruiting, training and retention.
In relation to streamlining security for oil wells and offices in South America, Weatherford was challenged by a number of factors: the sheer number of countries involved and the fact that each location deployed different solutions. They wanted security operators and other relevant personnel to be able to view any given location at any time but were concerned about protecting the security of information and the potential complications involved in deploying a Video Management Services (VMS) solution that would be compatible with the diverse solutions deployed at the various sites.
After consultations with various vendors, they came away convinced that SecurOS VMS software from Intelligent Security Systems (ISS), offered an ideal solution to their needs. The reason for this was the true open platform offered by SecurOS as well as the ability to keep information secure, so that only relevant personnel would have access to it.
The Solution
The integration itself was quite complex as it involved several different countries: Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina.
“We had the peace of mind from the beginning of knowing that this integration was being handled with the utmost of professionalism, with very specific attention to key details,” said Pablo Veltri, IT Operations Manager of Weatherford in Latin America. “They understood our need to be able to view oil wells and offices on an as needed basis, but at the same time knew our concerns about guarding the sensitivity of such information was also key. The Cisco/ISS provided us with everything we needed: a virtual solution as well as a secure, open platform.”
The integration involved the aforementioned four countries in South America and 5 different cities, and 73 cameras to start, including Cisco and Axis cameras, and both analog and IP models.
The Benefits
“We now have the peace of mind of being able to know what is going on at any given site at any given time,” said Paolo Veltri. “While traveling, key personnel can manage the entire security system from Administrator Notebook. At the same time, access is only granted to those with clearance.
Veltri has also commented on the overall superior images and intelligence of the SecurOS solution. “Clarity of images is key to our overall security. We can’t have guesswork when it comes to being able to identify the features of a potential intruder, and we need alerts to happen instantly and in a way that notifies all relevant personnel at once. SecurOS has become a key security partner for us in that sense, and because of its overall intelligence, false alerts are very uncommon.”
The deployment is continually growing, with several more cameras added in just the last month.
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