a l y e s k a c a s e s t u d y

Alyeska Pipeline
“CATSWeb allowed
us to implement our
business processes
without redefining
them. This resulted
in our ability
to efficiently
accomplish our
business goals.”
Kathie May
Regulatory Affairs Manager
Alyeska Pipeline
Service Company
“We went through a formal functional design
phase and detailed every aspect,” Jessee says.
“Before we built anything, its functional design
had to be fully understood.” Doing it this way also
made certain that all parties approved design
details before implementation.
“Our implementation process worked out pretty
well,” Jessee recalls. Development was done on
a hosted server at SysGen in Illinois and another
was set up at Alyeska for quality control. Handling
testing this way saved a lot of time, Jessee says.
“Because of AssurX’s ability to immediately
provide a hosted site for development, we didn’t
have to wait until all the hardware was installed
before we could get moving…we could do things
in parallel.”
Elaborating on the process, he explains, “We were
able to keep moving forward even when we didn’t
Service Company
for starters that management no longer needs
to meet each month to go over delinquencies;
instead, the system provides an automatic online
report published on the first of each month.
“Management is happy; they now have their
monthly reports from the home page and enjoy
major efficiencies.”
Another positive impact: those old 5% to 20%
delinquency rates are a thing of the past. Since
implementation, there has been a grand total of
one delinquency over the past 21 months. Alyeska
personnel are now able to “hit the deadlines,
monitor assignments and better communicate”
observes Jessee. Better still, Alyeska has “raised
the bar” for its own performance standards.
“Performance metrics have been raised to 99%
of all MAC actions and commitments in a timely
manner, an order of magnitude improvement,”
Jessee says. In addition, over 100 changes have

customer case study

have the final hardware on-site yet…we migrated
information in batch mode, completed certain
forms, and then tested them. Once everything
worked as designed, then we’d deploy, migrate
and install.”
Training & Going Live
CATSWeb went live in October 2003 within
the approved budget and to unanimous user
approval, Jessee says – a trend that continues to
the present, as he says, “User feedback has been
very positive.”
But if the deployment phase went smoothly,
the training path was even smoother. In fact, an
Alyeska employee designed the training system
been implemented to date as part of the ongoing
continuous improvement program at Alyeska.
A Bright Future
“We’re finding new ways to use the tool all the
time to manage compliance activities,” Jessee
says. For starters, he’s already adding more
management processes including document
change, reliability centered maintenance, change
management and lessons learned.
Alyeska officials are working with regulators to Compliance Management:
identify ongoing regulatory obligations that are
due on a quarterly or yearly basis. “By doing this, A Comprehensive Approach
to Assuring Management
MAC has been able to assign these recurring
actions and assure ongoing compliance by

AssurX, Inc.
for other employees. “We took the training
process and made it into an interactive tool with
documenting the history,” Jessee says. “Thanks
to our new program, we’ll now have a complete Actions and Commitments
305 Vineyard Town Ctr. audio that explains how the process works and history of how we’ve complied.”
what the different roles are,” Jessee says. It takes
Suite 374
only about 30 minutes to go through the training. Like many new uses the team at Alyeska
Morgan Hill, CA 95037 continues to discover, the ongoing regulatory
Tel 408.778.1376
New Process Impact obligations weren’t part of the original project.
“The new system has grown with us to help in
Fax 408.776.1267 Asked to describe ways the new process has ways we hadn’t even imagined,” he says.
www.assurx.com impacted operations at Alyeska, Jessee notes

© Copyright 2005, AssurX, Inc. All rights reserved.

 A l y e s k a P i p e l i n e

Alyeska Pipeline
Compliance Management: A Comprehensive Approach
to Assuring Management Actions and Commitments

One of the longest, most important and most regulated oil pipelines in the world faced a The Alyeska team identified four key shortfalls in Selecting a Solution
significant challenge: after a comprehensive internal audit of the corrective action process, it their process:
was discovered that Alyeska Pipeline Service Company (Alyeska) had more than 60 different Jessee and his team knew Alyeska required an
1. Lack of an intuitive tool, linkages to excellent system, and they developed a rigorous
methods of identifying problems and correcting them. Officials at Alyeska knew that they
other processes, and standardized qualitative selection matrix to help them find
needed to streamline their approach to monitoring safety issues, environmental surveillance,
prioritization it. The software selection matrix focused on
maintenance and overall quality efforts to operate the safest and most efficient pipeline 2. User difficulty with the current tool important criteria that included:
system possible. has led to the creation of duplicative
The consortium of tracking databases  Risk based on vendor maturity/stability,
companies that own the The good news is that Alyeska found a solution. The product selected by Alyeska was 3. Reporting lacked an easy way for product maturity/stability and other
Trans-Alaska Pipeline CATSWeb by AssurX. To learn more about how Alyeska selected CATSWeb and leveraged it to employees to gather data and create ad- preliminary costs
“In the course of
System (TAPS) includes: significantly improve its operations, read on. hoc reports because of the difficult user Process compatibility with defined
managing the pipeline,

interface; and business requirements
4. Lack of linkages with other processes Alyeska is required
BP  User interface and intuitive nature of
has led to commitments to regulators to adhere to many
ConocoPhillips the product
ExxonMobil becoming unfunded during the course  Data compatibility with data fields
regulations imposed
Koch of the year, making compliance more identified in MAC process by state and federal
Unocal Understanding the Challenge their formal business processes should work and difficult.  Technical compatibility with Alyeska’s IT government agencies.
then find a tool to adapt to their process – not infrastructure and strategy We anticipate that
After an internal audit of the corrective action the other way around. Key to Alyeska’s needs was Alyeska’s overall commitment was to develop CATSWeb will help us
process a few years ago, Alyeska’s leadership flexibility, said Mel Jessee, Regulatory Compliance a Management Actions and Commitments “We first looked at developing a custom solution to assure that any
knew they wanted to improve in some important Specialist. “The process always comes first, the (MAC) program, that would provide assurance from scratch,” Jessee recalls. But after a look at notable conditions
areas. But when your “office” stretches across tool comes second,” he said. to regulators and the public that environmental, the high costs, long timeline and other risk issues, that are discovered
more than 800 miles of pipeline, crosses three technical and safety related commitments and Jessee and his team decided instead to search for are consistently
mountain ranges and 34 major rivers and features More than crude oil flows through TAPS; there is corrective actions are being effectively managed. existing Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) acted upon in a timely
the work of 2,000 employees, that’s a pretty also a heavy flow of information and regulatory systems. They found 13 off-the-shelf offerings manner and tracked
commitments. In 2002, Alyeska set a standard “Adequate and appropriate means and that generally matched Alyeska’s requirements.
tall order. to closure.”
to close 90% of high and medium priority procedures for the detection and prompt Digging deeper, they knocked ten off the list and
But understanding and addressing challenges is commitments in a timely manner for regulators. abatement of any actual or potential focused on the three most likely to be able to Dan Hisey
nothing new at Alyeska. Since pipeline startup In early 2003, the overall monthly delinquency condition that is susceptible to abatements… meet or exceed TAPS’ demanding requirements. Chief Operating Officer
in 1977, Alyeska has operated with an innovative, rate ranged between 5% and 20%. Alyeska knew which at any time may cause or threaten to Alyeska Pipeline
positive mindset based on the concept, “As long it could do better, and sought a partner to help it cause a hazard to the safety of workers or to After reviewing the presentations of the three Service Company
as there’s oil…we’ll continue to move it.” reach that goal. the public health or safety, or harm or damage vendors, Jessee and his team asked the top two to
to the environment.” provide formal vendor proposals. AssurX’s team
And move it Alyeska does. The Trans Alaska Addressing the Challenge worked part-time over a two-week period using a
Pipeline System (TAPS) is an engineering marvel “We take this commitment seriously,” Jessee hosted Internet connection to deliver a working
that today moves approximately one million In order to improve their operational efficiency, stressed. “We wanted to back our strong words prototype within Alyeska’s deadline. “It was
barrels of crude oil per day from Alaska’s North Alyeska knew that it must first get a clear with even stronger actions.” simple to tailor the flow and feel of CATSWeb to
Slope to the Port of Valdez. And don’t forget understanding of its strengths and weaknesses, meet our requirements,” Jessee said.
that TAPS must work closely with more than then invite service providers to show how To do that, Alyeska used MAC as its corrective
twenty primary regulatory bodies, including the they could help address those issues, and finally action process (CAP). The TAPS compliance Implementing the Solution
Department of Transportation, Bureau of Land conduct a rigorous evaluation to find the model relies on formal business processes to
Management and the U.S. Coast Guard. right partner. monitor and ensure on-going compliance and With CATSWeb identified as their choice, the
conformance. When real or potential deficiencies Alyeska team – backed by AssurX support – put
It’s a big job to manage. In order to improve their are discovered, the CAP captures, tracks and helps together a project team with key personnel from
operations, Alyeska wanted to better define how ensure the resolution of the situation. all supporting vendors.

c a s e s t u d y
 A l y e s k a P i p e l i n e

Alyeska Pipeline
Compliance Management: A Comprehensive Approach
to Assuring Management Actions and Commitments

One of the longest, most important and most regulated oil pipelines in the world faced a The Alyeska team identified four key shortfalls in Selecting a Solution
significant challenge: after a comprehensive internal audit of the corrective action process, it their process:
was discovered that Alyeska Pipeline Service Company (Alyeska) had more than 60 different Jessee and his team knew Alyeska required an
1. Lack of an intuitive tool, linkages to excellent system, and they developed a rigorous
methods of identifying problems and correcting them. Officials at Alyeska knew that they
other processes, and standardized qualitative selection matrix to help them find
needed to streamline their approach to monitoring safety issues, environmental surveillance,
prioritization it. The software selection matrix focused on
maintenance and overall quality efforts to operate the safest and most efficient pipeline 2. User difficulty with the current tool important criteria that included:
system possible. has led to the creation of duplicative
The consortium of tracking databases  Risk based on vendor maturity/stability,
companies that own the The good news is that Alyeska found a solution. The product selected by Alyeska was 3. Reporting lacked an easy way for product maturity/stability and other
Trans-Alaska Pipeline CATSWeb by AssurX. To learn more about how Alyeska selected CATSWeb and leveraged it to employees to gather data and create ad- preliminary costs
“In the course of
System (TAPS) includes: significantly improve its operations, read on. hoc reports because of the difficult user Process compatibility with defined
managing the pipeline,

interface; and business requirements
4. Lack of linkages with other processes Alyeska is required
BP  User interface and intuitive nature of
has led to commitments to regulators to adhere to many
ConocoPhillips the product
ExxonMobil becoming unfunded during the course  Data compatibility with data fields
regulations imposed
Koch of the year, making compliance more identified in MAC process by state and federal
Unocal Understanding the Challenge their formal business processes should work and difficult.  Technical compatibility with Alyeska’s IT government agencies.
then find a tool to adapt to their process – not infrastructure and strategy We anticipate that
After an internal audit of the corrective action the other way around. Key to Alyeska’s needs was Alyeska’s overall commitment was to develop CATSWeb will help us
process a few years ago, Alyeska’s leadership flexibility, said Mel Jessee, Regulatory Compliance a Management Actions and Commitments “We first looked at developing a custom solution to assure that any
knew they wanted to improve in some important Specialist. “The process always comes first, the (MAC) program, that would provide assurance from scratch,” Jessee recalls. But after a look at notable conditions
areas. But when your “office” stretches across tool comes second,” he said. to regulators and the public that environmental, the high costs, long timeline and other risk issues, that are discovered
more than 800 miles of pipeline, crosses three technical and safety related commitments and Jessee and his team decided instead to search for are consistently
mountain ranges and 34 major rivers and features More than crude oil flows through TAPS; there is corrective actions are being effectively managed. existing Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) acted upon in a timely
the work of 2,000 employees, that’s a pretty also a heavy flow of information and regulatory systems. They found 13 off-the-shelf offerings manner and tracked
commitments. In 2002, Alyeska set a standard “Adequate and appropriate means and that generally matched Alyeska’s requirements.
tall order. to closure.”
to close 90% of high and medium priority procedures for the detection and prompt Digging deeper, they knocked ten off the list and
But understanding and addressing challenges is commitments in a timely manner for regulators. abatement of any actual or potential focused on the three most likely to be able to Dan Hisey
nothing new at Alyeska. Since pipeline startup In early 2003, the overall monthly delinquency condition that is susceptible to abatements… meet or exceed TAPS’ demanding requirements. Chief Operating Officer
in 1977, Alyeska has operated with an innovative, rate ranged between 5% and 20%. Alyeska knew which at any time may cause or threaten to Alyeska Pipeline
positive mindset based on the concept, “As long it could do better, and sought a partner to help it cause a hazard to the safety of workers or to After reviewing the presentations of the three Service Company
as there’s oil…we’ll continue to move it.” reach that goal. the public health or safety, or harm or damage vendors, Jessee and his team asked the top two to
to the environment.” provide formal vendor proposals. AssurX’s team
And move it Alyeska does. The Trans Alaska Addressing the Challenge worked part-time over a two-week period using a
Pipeline System (TAPS) is an engineering marvel “We take this commitment seriously,” Jessee hosted Internet connection to deliver a working
that today moves approximately one million In order to improve their operational efficiency, stressed. “We wanted to back our strong words prototype within Alyeska’s deadline. “It was
barrels of crude oil per day from Alaska’s North Alyeska knew that it must first get a clear with even stronger actions.” simple to tailor the flow and feel of CATSWeb to
Slope to the Port of Valdez. And don’t forget understanding of its strengths and weaknesses, meet our requirements,” Jessee said.
that TAPS must work closely with more than then invite service providers to show how To do that, Alyeska used MAC as its corrective
twenty primary regulatory bodies, including the they could help address those issues, and finally action process (CAP). The TAPS compliance Implementing the Solution
Department of Transportation, Bureau of Land conduct a rigorous evaluation to find the model relies on formal business processes to
Management and the U.S. Coast Guard. right partner. monitor and ensure on-going compliance and With CATSWeb identified as their choice, the
conformance. When real or potential deficiencies Alyeska team – backed by AssurX support – put
It’s a big job to manage. In order to improve their are discovered, the CAP captures, tracks and helps together a project team with key personnel from
operations, Alyeska wanted to better define how ensure the resolution of the situation. all supporting vendors.

c a s e s t u d y
 a l y e s k a c a s e
“We went through a formal functional design
phase and detailed every aspect,” Jessee says.
“Before we built anything, its functional design
had to be fully understood.” Doing it this way also
made certain that all parties approved design
“CATSWeb allowed details before implementation.
us to implement our
business processes “Our implementation process worked out pretty
without redefining well,” Jessee recalls. Development was done on
them. This resulted a hosted server at SysGen in Illinois and another
in our ability was set up at Alyeska for quality control. Handling
to efficiently testing this way saved a lot of time, Jessee says.
accomplish our “Because of AssurX’s ability to immediately
provide a hosted site for development, we didn’t
business goals.”
have to wait until all the hardware was installed
before we could get moving…we could do things
Kathie May
Regulatory Affairs Manager in parallel.”
Alyeska Pipeline
Service Company Elaborating on the process, he explains, “We were
able to keep moving forward even when we didn’t
have the final hardware on-site yet…we migrated
information in batch mode, completed certain
forms, and then tested them. Once everything
worked as designed, then we’d deploy, migrate
and install.”
Training & Going Live
CATSWeb went live in October 2003 within
the approved budget and to unanimous user
approval, Jessee says – a trend that continues to
the present, as he says, “User feedback has been
very positive.”
But if the deployment phase went smoothly,
the training path was even smoother. In fact, an
Alyeska employee designed the training system
AssurX, Inc.
for other employees. “We took the training
process and made it into an interactive tool with
305 Vineyard Town Ctr. audio that explains how the process works and
what the different roles are,” Jessee says. It takes
Suite 374
only about 30 minutes to go through the training.
Morgan Hill, CA 95037
Tel 408.778.1376
New Process Impact
Fax 408.776.1267 Asked to describe ways the new process has
www.assurx.com impacted operations at Alyeska, Jessee notes
© Copyright 2005, AssurX, Inc. All rights reserved.
s t u d y
Alyeska Pipeline
Service Company
for starters that management no longer needs
to meet each month to go over delinquencies;
instead, the system provides an automatic online
report published on the first of each month.
“Management is happy; they now have their
monthly reports from the home page and enjoy
major efficiencies.”
Another positive impact: those old 5% to 20%
delinquency rates are a thing of the past. Since
implementation, there has been a grand total of
one delinquency over the past 21 months. Alyeska
personnel are now able to “hit the deadlines,
monitor assignments and better communicate”
observes Jessee. Better still, Alyeska has “raised
the bar” for its own performance standards.
“Performance metrics have been raised to 99%
of all MAC actions and commitments in a timely
manner, an order of magnitude improvement,”
Jessee says. In addition, over 100 changes have
customer case study
been implemented to date as part of the ongoing
continuous improvement program at Alyeska.
A Bright Future
“We’re finding new ways to use the tool all the
time to manage compliance activities,” Jessee
says. For starters, he’s already adding more
management processes including document
change, reliability centered maintenance, change
management and lessons learned.
Alyeska officials are working with regulators to Compliance Management:
identify ongoing regulatory obligations that are
due on a quarterly or yearly basis. “By doing this, A Comprehensive Approach
to Assuring Management
MAC has been able to assign these recurring
actions and assure ongoing compliance by
documenting the history,” Jessee says. “Thanks
to our new program, we’ll now have a complete Actions and Commitments
history of how we’ve complied.”
Like many new uses the team at Alyeska
continues to discover, the ongoing regulatory
obligations weren’t part of the original project.
“The new system has grown with us to help in
ways we hadn’t even imagined,” he says.