Sparrows to Extend Global Reach with Amor Group Support
Sparrows, leading provider of oilfield lifting engineering services to the oil and gas industry, has appointed Amor Group to manage the outsourcing of its IT function as part of its global expansion strategy.
The contract will deliver a more robust delivery platform and quicker turnaround times across all operations to the benefit of Sparrows customers.
The five year contract will see Amor Group providing a range of flexible IT support services, including IT infrastructure, business systems and communications support together with the management of all third party IT contracts on a 24/7 basis. This will bring in new ways of working, reduce cost and optimise processes and systems. 
Doug Sedge, Chief Executive Officer, Sparrows, said: “This contract award underlines the importance of a world-class IM function to Sparrows. We are confident that Amor will deliver a robust, flexible and scalable solution to support our growing business.”
Amor Group will offer a fully out-sourced service for the management of Sparrows Information Management (IM) systems, delivering a dynamic, modern and comprehensive service that supports and reduces risk to their global operations.
John Innes, Chief Executive Officer of Amor Group, added: “We are delighted to have the opportunity to transform Sparrows IT function. Working with one of the world’s leading providers of oilfield lifting engineering services underlies our oil and gas credentials and cements our position as a leader in IT support operations.”
Maintaining Competence in Control Room Operations
With an aging workforce and a dearth of new talent entering the oil and gas industry, the focus on training and maintaining the competence of control room operations staff has never been greater. Allied to this, demand from new build projects and upgrades as part of obsolescence programs has heightened the need for Operational Training Simulators (OTS).
To address the current and impending skills gaps, operators are looking for a solution that provides the answer to their training, testing and troubleshooting need on their control systems without the requirement for significant investment in high cost simulators. Control systems are critical in the drive for increased asset performance.
Increasingly, asset operators are turning to process simulation tools that can be utilised to develop realistic models of oil and gas production processes allowing plant technicians to familiarise themselves with their control systems in abnormal situations at no risk to live operations.
To ensure operators maximise asset performance and safety, Amor works extensively within the Oil & Gas industry delivering Simulation+, an OTS based on industry standard models for topsides processing, LNG plant and midstream production. Simulation+ uses OPC to interface to the key Distributed Control Systems (DCS) on the market.
Recently used as part of the world’s leading Oil & Gas training facility, the ABCOL Process Training Plant incorporates Simulation+ to model their process based on Emerson’s DeltaV DCS.
In a further installation over 60 operators and technicians were retrained in a 5 week period as their Bailey INFI-90 DCS was upgraded to modern control, graphics and alarm standards.
As an added benefit, Simulation+ can be utilised to test control strategies for robustness and operability across the entire operations envelope with modelling able to uncover the causes of poor plant performance or prove modifications that will optimise the plant.
With the ever increasing skills gap, OTS systems such as Simulation+ are central to safe and profitable operations within the Oil & Gas industry
Comprehensive Service Measurement Programme
Dubai Airports has cemented its commitment to improving passengers’ overall airport experience with the appointment of Amor to implement a comprehensive service delivery measurement programme.
The largest project of its kind to be undertaken by an airport operator, it will deliver intelligent, real-time information to drive better service delivery for passengers. The first phase of the initiative will see the installation and configuration of real time monitoring and decision support for 60% of the planned 106 key passenger processes across the airport in priority areas including check-in, security, immigration and flight transfer by the end of the year. The second and final phase of the Service Delivery Measurement implementation is expected to rollout early next year on the back of the completion of phase one.
Chris Garton, Senior Vice President of Airport Operations for Dubai Airports explains the significance of the move: “Over 50 million passengers will pass through Dubai International this year and this number will continue to grow rapidly. By 2015 we are set to be the busiest airport in the world for international passenger traffic with 75 million passengers. This project will help us maintain high service levels and further enhance the airport experience as we grow by providing real-time visibility of the entire passenger process.”
Martin Bowman, Transport Sector Director for Amor adds: “This is a ground-breaking project aimed at improving the airport experience for passengers and supporting Dubai International’s growing reputation as a leading international hub. Dubai Airports’ remit for an end-to-end overview of passengers’ journeys through the entire airport makes this the largest service level measurement system ever to be undertaken. We are rolling out best-in-breed technologies to track, measure and monitor passenger service levels anonymously. The results will be fundamental in delivering daily, weekly and monthly service level demand forecasts to help planning while simultaneously allowing any service issues to be identified and addressed immediately - a key step in Dubai Airports’ goal of making Dubai International the world’s busiest and best international airport.”
This latest deal has prompted the planned opening of a dedicated Amor Group office this September in Dubai to service the fastest growing region in consumer air transport.
Best of Breed Campus for UWS
The University of the West of Scotland (UWS) was formed in 2007 with four main campus locations; Paisley, Ayr, Hamilton and Dumfries.
The Ayr campus boasts some of Higher Education’s best media facilities in music, television and radio, digital editing and graphics, digital art and photography. UWS required assistance in designing the data and voice network for its new Ayr campus, through a number of stages of the project, through to specification and procurement of external services for implementation. Similar assistance was required for the implementation of thin client technologies as a contribution towards the BREEAM Excellent rating awarded to the new build.
Amor was appointed, working closely with its partner FarrPoint Ltd., to provide design and management services for the voice, data, cabling and thin client development of the new Ayr campus. During the planning phase, Amor undertook a requirements capture through a number of structured meetings with key stakeholders of the UWS, including representatives from the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC) who are co-located in the building. A service management profile was developed addressing how each element would be managed and supported over the longer term. The output from the requirements capture was an initial requirements specification for each of the cabling, data, voice and thin client elements, including both wired and wireless data and thin client networks. Following agreement of requirements, Amor advised on the most suitable procurement methodology for the services. The requirements were combined in the main site ICT strategy; Amor generated a full set of procurement documentation, approached the market, and managed the procurement process on behalf of UWS and SAC.
An overall ICT strategy for the Ayr campus was developed to reflect the requirements of the users now and projected future requirements over a period of 5 to 10 years. The output from this strategy fed into the infrastructure requirements for the building and into the design and build phase.
Dr Brian Mullins, ICT Services Director at UWS said: “Amor’s independent technical advice on ICT infrastructure and commercial assistance with the procurement process resulted in us having the most cost-effective and manageable solutions for the collaborative space in our new Ayr campus building.”
The new Ayr campus opened in August 2011 and is ready to accept both returning and new students for both UWS and SAC.
Reviewing ICT Within the Public Sector
In 2010 John McClelland undertook a review of the use and strategic management of information and communications technology (ICT) within all facets of the public sector in Scotland.
His review strived to understand how ICT is being adopted in the public sector, in particular delivering efficiencies, improving the quality and access of public services, and if public sector organisations achieved value for money. Covering the health service, local authorities, Scottish Government departments, police and universities, the findings of the report were released earlier this year.
As a dominant sector of Amor’s core business, Jimmy Lumsden, Business Unit Director within the Public Sector at Amor, reviews McClelland’s recent report for its relevance within Scotland and the rest of the UK.
“All in all, I agree with the majority of the findings within the report and I recognise the landscape that John McClelland undertook to complete his investigations. That being said, I do think that the report is overly positive in some aspects with some of the recommendations around governance going forward are top heavy.
The report refers to Shared Services within the Orkney Islands. We had first-hand experience of joint working on this project; an example of this was the preparation of the business case in the IT work stream for inter-agency sharing. Our involvement was very enlightening and revealed that the challenges of change management were considerable in comparison to development of technical solutions and service design.
"In our experience, governance and sharing face significant parochial challenge; we need to insure that governing bodies have the courage and conviction needed to drive these through.”
The report investigates a number of areas of ICT within the Public Sector and how it is being adopted. Amor anticipates that further research by the Government will be done into this area to continually improve the offering to Public Sector Organisations. These investigations will ultimately aid Amor in continuing to grow its relationships with Public Sector organisations.
