Flint Hills Resources’ Transformation from Inefficient On-Prem to Connected SaaS APM

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Customer Information

Introduction

Company

Flint Hills Resources

Industry

Oil & Gas

Products

Mechanical Integrity, Asset Performance Management

Flint Hills Resources, an independent refining company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch based in Wichita, Kansas, was operating a heavily customized, on-premises version of Meridium APM installed over a decade ago. The company undertook a multi-year transformation journey to migrate from this legacy mechanical integrity system to GE Vernova’s SaaS APM platform. The move provided a scalable, modernized foundation for future innovation, including mobile integrity and embracing AI — key focus areas for the company’s mechanical integrity group. 

The Challenge

Flint Hills Resources’ ability to make timely, data-driven mechanical integrity decisions based on risk levels was hampered by an on-premises mechanical integrity application that was outdated and resource intensive. The challenges with this format included:  
  • High technical debt due to extensive customizations, making upgrades more difficult.
  • Performance and scalability issues.
  • Internal IT burden to manage hardware and servers.
  • Inability to implement new tools such as mobile integrity applications.
  • Siloed processes and complex integrations, including one to connect to an external risk-based calculator.

Solution

The project focused on removing customizations and embracing a standardized, cloud-first approach by migrating to APM Integrity on GE Vernova’s SaaS platform. Flint Hills Resources’ goals were to ensure scalability and improve the user experience, while retaining the critical inspection, corrosion monitoring, and risk-based functionality that the team relied on in their on-premises, legacy Meridium. 

Results

With dedicated support from their GE Vernova team throughout the process, the move to the cloud has successfully modernized their mechanical integrity application, reduced internal costs, and positioned them to take advantage of future AI and mobility advancements. 

The results of the migration included:
  • Improved application performance: The cloud-native application delivers faster UI performance, quicker query results, and dramatically improves policy execution speed. 
  • Reduced IT overhead: The move to a SaaS model frees the internal IT team from managing servers and application upgrades, allowing them to focus on higher-value activities. 
  • Enabled mobile functionality: The SaaS application provides access to APM Integrity Mobile for inspections and data collection in the field, moving them towards the next phase of corrosion monitoring enhancements.  
  • Elimination of technical debt: By migrating data to a clean APM application instance, they successfully eliminated all legacy customizations, moving to a standard, fully supported application platform. 
  • Improved integration processes: SaaS offers modern API based integration connections between APM to their CMMS application. 
  • Immediate access to innovation: The team now has immediate access to new APM features and capabilities through automatic quarterly releases, including advancements in GenAI and reporting. 
Flint Hills Resources
25:28
Presenter:

Scott White
Fixed Equipment Systems Leader, Flint Hills Resources