IBM® Global Business Services Whitepaper

Natural Resources

IBM Natural Resources Solution Centre, Perth IBM’s new Natural Resources Solution Centre in Western Australia offers state-of-the-art facilities designed to help Australia’s mining and petroleum industries work smarter.

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IBM Natural Resources Solution Centre, Perth

About the IBM Natural Resources Solution Centre, Perth, Western Australia The mission of the Natural Resources Solution Centre (NRSC) is to promote smart operations for petroleum and mining businesses in Australia. The NRSC supports client briefings, research and development, joint solution developments and proof-of-concept development with clients. Located within IBM’s Hay Street offices in Perth, the NRSC leverages IBM’s annual global R&D budget of US$6 billion, which includes investment in the development of Smarter Planet natural resources sector solutions such as IBM’s Intelligent Oilfields. The NRSC will coordinate and support client driven research among clients, Australian research institutions, IBM research scientists and centres.

The new world for resources Succeeding in today’s complex resources environment requires creating whole new business models that change how companies form and govern new ventures. It will also mean developing new approaches to collaborating with engineering, procurement and construction suppliers, and other supply-chain partners. The infrastructure build-up required to keep pace with Australia’s booming resources sector demands global integration capabilities and global resources. These are IBM’s strengths. IBM can draw upon a national and global workforce of thousands, to assemble a truly world-class team that supports innovation in Australia’s resources industry. At IBM, “smart” is more than our tagline, it is our vision. We are constantly seeking better ways to solve business problems in partnership with our clients using mutual business and technical ingenuity. IBM’s Natural Resources Solution Centre (NRSC) located in Perth, Western Australia demonstrates this commitment by offering an environment where business leaders from the petroleum and mining industries can explore solutions to specific business problems by workshopping ideas and developing proofs of concept and pilot projects. IBM has invested in a major renovation of its Perth headquarters to build this state-of-the-art facility where petroleum and mining companies – based in Australia or overseas – can fast track the development of innovative technologies and business strategies.

IBM’s Smarter Planet vision is central to our corporate strategy, and we have embedded smart capabilities throughout every facet of our organisation. We have systematically applied the principles of “smart” to a variety of sectors and this sharing of ideas across industries elevates the performance of all.

A centre for collaboration The Natural Resources Solution Centre is an industryfocused environment designed to promote collaboration between IBM experts and local clients, industry, tertiary institutions and strategic business partners to create groundbreaking solutions for the resources industry. It provides a forum where IBM subject-matter experts can interact with industry leaders through a multi-disciplinary team of IBM consultants, brand specialists and IBM research staff.

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opportunities within its global network to bring the best of the company’s deep industry expertise to Perth.” The NRSC supports the development of first-of-a-kind programs and the testing of new solutions, as well as offering designated areas for client briefings and laboratories for research and development work. Services offered at the NRSC include: • Executive workshops • Research and development • Proof of concepts / prototypes IBM has positioned a core team of senior subject-matter experts at the NRSC to help clients across the Asia Pacific region bring “smart resources” to life. IBM’s subject-matter expert team manages a portfolio of assets originally built at other IBM and client locations. They bring their vast experience in creating outcomes based on IBM technology to bear on local client issues. The NRSC in Perth is also supported by a network of IBM Global Solution Centres around the world including India, the US, Europe and China. These Solution Centres are closely linked to provide 24x7 global integration and support.

Services The NRSC is also an IBM Centre of Excellence, one of six around the world that are focused on creating solutions for petroleum operations. The Perth NRSC also has the distinction of being the first Centre of Excellence to focus specifically on creating solutions for the mining industry. As the first Centre of Excellence for the mining industry, the NRSC will focus on reducing exploration and operational costs; creating financial and operational efficiencies; and improving workplace health and safety through smarter solutions such as integrated operations and asset lifecycle management. “The mining and petroleum industries share many similar issues, challenges and opportunities, and IBM expects to achieve a high level of synergy by working with both industries in this one new solution centre,” says Bill Stewart, Manager, NRSC. “IBM plans to invest in these key industries and will look for research collaboration

• Live solution demonstrations • Architecture workshops. The IBM NRSC in Western Australia is designed to help clients develop their unique competitive advantages by: • Streamlining the back-office, to free up skills and funding • Business process enabling capital projects and existing operations • Safety, reliability and a continuous improvement capability • Increasing operational excellence in asset management, performance management, safety and yield • Real-time data integration and monitoring of equipment • Efficient enterprise resource planning implementation and management • Improved performance management through business analytics, financial management and engineering data handover.

Local knowledge, global expertise IBM has a proven track record of providing world-class solutions to both upstream and downstream companies in the oil and gas industry. The opening of the NRSC in Western Australia gives innovators in the resources industry the opportunity to build local pilots and proof-of-concepts with clients and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) in a configurable, local sandbox, but one which is connected to IBM development and product support worldwide.

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IBM Natural Resources Solution Centre, Perth

Why IBM? Innovation and expertise IBM’s considerable knowledge and experience in facilitating business innovation can help organisations better manage change – both in regard to people and business processes. Developing innovative technology solutions and the business models that accompany them requires fulltime coordination throughout an organisation, along with a clearly articulated strategy and deployment plan. IBM can help by leveraging its rigorous program and project management capabilities, which include extensive experience in strategic roadmap development, program management and project execution.

Valuable research and development IBM Research can provide value to clients by combining practical business experience with extraordinary mathematical, scientific and technology skills to create stepchange solutions. With an annual research budget of more than US$6 billion, IBM Research is the world’s largest private research institution. IBM has over 3,000 researchers, including five Nobel Prize winners, and is consistently awarded the highest number of US patents each year – over 25,000 since 1993. Many of these patents were filed in conjunction with IBM’s clients and other parties and are jointly owned. Western Australia is not simply a place where some of the country’s most significant petroleum and mining projects are in the pipeline. Thanks to IBM, the region is also emerging as a research and development (R&D) hub, with world-class expertise focused on national and global issues. Key researchers in Western Australia will be able to take advantage of IBM’s partnerships in Stavanger (Norway), Houston (USA) and other global energy centres to extend their research networks and collaborate on large-scale projects.

IBM’s commitment to enabling local innovation in Australia’s resources industry is further demonstrated by our announcement of a new global research and development laboratory, the IBM Global R&D Lab, located in Victoria at the University of Melbourne. Open from early 2011, this world-class facility will engage leading Australian scientists and engineers from academia, government and commercial entities to extend IBM's global R&D footprint and accelerate progress towards a smarter planet. The IBM Global R&D Lab in Victoria will see researchers from the University of Melbourne, Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation (CSIRO), National ICT Australia (NICTA) and Australian businesses work in close collaboration with experts at the NRSC to develop new approaches to smarter natural resource management. Together, specialists at both facilities will pioneer innovations in a number of key areas related to resource discovery, production, supply chain and operations, and apply the most advanced techniques in monitoring, analytics and automation to resources such as oil and gas, minerals, water and food.

“The mining and petroleum industries share many similar issues, challenges and opportunities, and IBM expects to achieve a high level of synergy by working with both industries in this one new solution centre.” - Bill Stewart, Manager, NRSC

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Collaborating on industry solutions “In order to make the profound difference we seek in Western Australia, we know that we need to join forces with our clients and the local ecosystem,” says Ron Brennan, Petroleum Industry Solutions Executive, IBM, who oversaw construction of the new NRSC facility. “We have made significant investments in new facilities, infrastructure and local subject-matter experts to help us become a better longterm business partner.” To become a better business partner, IBM has dedicated itself to an approach that involves collaboration and exploration with members from the local resources industry to come up with innovative solutions. The NRSC gathers IBM’s strength in global resources industries and concentrates it in a single room in Perth – a place where you can meet with IBM experts who understand your specific business needs, and who can bring their global expertise to a fresh conversation about improving your business.

Further information To learn more about how the NRSC can help transform your organisation, please contact: +61 (0)8 9261 8610.

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