Sandra Theres DonyIndia’s second-largest oil marketing company, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd(BPCL) has entered into a collaboration with Irish multinational company, Accenture. The prime objective behind the collaboration is the transformation of BPCL’s sales and distribution network.
AI to Transform
Accenture plans integration of real-time data from across countrywide networks of BPCL through a digital platform called ‘Iris’. The implementation, building, and design of the platform will be based on artificial intelligence and cloud technologies. The countrywide network of BPCL includes over 18,000 fuel retail outlets, 25,000 tank trucks, 75 oil installations, and depots, 52 liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) bottling plants, in addition to 250 industrial and commercial locations. Together, they provide a clear picture of BPCL’s sales and distribution network.
According to Arun Kumar Singh( Director of marketing and refineries)
“Digital transformation opens up new opportunities for the oil and gas industry. As an organization passionate about embracing change and leading the charge, we look forward to leveraging technology to unlock tremendous value, sustainable growth, and improved efficiency.”
The digital platform ‘Iris’ is capable of triggering automated alerts and actions, thanks to its AI-powered analytics. It is also capable of rapid and timely response to equipment failures and resultant hazardous situations. This will be of subsequent help in ensuring the safety of the organization and the workforce, which by default will be reflected in the functioning of the organization.
The platform will also equip the BPCL workforce across the country with the ability of faster and more accurate decision-making, which includes preventive maintenance. This is a rather huge step as the BPCL workforce across the country is over 100,000 in number. The accuracy and quickness in decision making will prove to be of remarkable help in increasing sales at fuel retail outlets by saving infrastructure downtime, and by ensuring consistency concerning fuel quality and quantity.
By adding artificial intelligence into the equation of BPCL’s sales and distribution, Accenture is helping the company in a multitude of ways. The platform will ensure optimization of operational performances and efficiency, enhanced security and safety, in addition to providing a superior quality experience to more than 10 million retail and commercial customers.
The collaboration between Accenture and BPCL is an exemplar example of blending together advanced technology and human efforts to achieve remarkable and transformative results.
More than three million inputs per second can be accepted by the platform form across automated sensors, cameras, sensors, and IoT systems. The agility and scalability of the platform will be enhanced as well since it uses BPCL’s cloud infrastructure.