As in previous years, the breakout sessions will fall into either a business track, or a technical track. Unlike past years, however, we will present most of them twice so that attendee’s will be able to participate in most, if not all, sessions.

Business Track Session

Best Practices in Order to Scheduling (O2S)

This session is focused on how best to collaborate with customers and optimize operations when receiving and scheduling orders (nominations and requests). We’ll share the most recent upgrades to Nomination, as well as Synthesis’ rich scheduling capabilities.  We’ll also cover what we have seen as best practices in the industry; techniques for better customer service, maximized revenue, and optimized plans.

Best Practices in Measurement to Booking (M2B)

This session follows on where the the one above finishes. It takes over the process with the schedule and covers capabilities and best practices for executing operations including integrating with SCADA and your field systems, monitoring progress and making adjustments. We’ll discuss ways to get traceability via ID schemes tying noms all the way to inventory and charges. What is the best way to handle multiple measurement sources, including Synthesis Remote? What are their ways to automate and streamline ticket distribution, book to physical and other stock accounting functions. Make sure you know all about the sizable list of new capabilities at your disposal in Synthesis.

Workshop on Future Features

What should Entessa include in Release 10, 11 and beyond? What does the Synthesis road-map look like. This session is your opportunity to find out what our plans are. More importantly its your opportunity to help shape them. It will be in a workshop format where we’ll facilitate the flow of ideas. Your participation in this session this will play a huge role in what we do to our product over the next 12 months.

Using Synthesis Internationally

Synthesis has many built in capabilities that allow it to be deployed and used in a variety of different countries. In this session we’ll show you how to take advantage of many of these options. It will include how to support multiple languages, dates, currencies, and units of measurement. We’ll also have an informative case study on the Oil logistics business in Canada. Finally, we’ll cover how to roll out your enterprise solutions across borders.

Measuring Success in Marine Ops

This topic focuses on marine operations, but is a good case study for all parts of the supply chain. We discuss how rich, real time operational data can be used to tune your operations, improving turn around, reducing demurrage and generally getting more out of your marine assets. We’ll profile best practices in the industry and illustrate how to use Synthesis to help.

What’s the “Business” in B2B?

Increasingly carriers and operators are communicating with their customers and vendors electronically, in real time. This session will cover how you can use standard Synthesis capabilities to integrate with your partners, either a) via data exchanges such as DTN (Petroex, TABS) and Transport4 (PIDX), or b) directly using Synthesis and industry standards.  Learn about current industry trends (who is doing what), the costs and revenue opportunities, benefits and pitfalls, and the best ways to take advantage of a tighter relationship with your customers and partners.

Business Controls (catchier name coming!)

From SOX to prior period adjustments, from compliance to business intelligence, knowing exactly what is going on, and detecting when changes occur is a key to success. Based on a request from last year, we’ll review how Synthesis can help monitor, control and manage your business.

Technical Track Session Suggestions

Report Writing & the Synthesis Database

This session is in part an update from a well received session we did 2 years ago. It’s an in-depth tutorial on the latest capabilities of the Synthesis reporting engine, with an emphasis on how to write your own XLS, Word, PDF and Crystal Reports. Its also a insiders guide on the details of the Synthesis database schema.

Building Apps using the Synthesis Platform

The Synthesis Platform many features for building web based and distributed applications. Whether you are developing in house apps, looking to add extensions to Synthesis “Petro”, or integrate with other technology, this session will benefit you. We’ll review in detail the architecture and capabilities of Synthesis Platform (Community Edition). We’ll share tutorials and working examples of common web application requirements, including building CRUD pages, MDA/code-gen, our or your own Web Service API’s, configuring extensions, deployment and more.

Wow, how did you do that (“Cool Interactive Demo”)?

We have plans for an interesting, participatory, Synthesis based visioning demo built specifically for the UCON. In this session we’ll show you how it was easier than it looked, using the Synthesis Platform and combining our “petro” with 3rd party API’s.

25 ways to Configure & Extend Synthesis “Petro”

A fun and informative session where 2 presenters, alternating in 2 minutes slots, will present 25 powerful techniques for making Synthesis work better for your company. A valuable how-to list including Setting up Alerts, Using our new Rules Engine, customizing your field names, configuring decimal places, ordering drop-down lists, triggering events, and much more.

Synthesis Remote Under the Hood

Release 9 includes Synthesis Remote, a Rich Internet Application (RIA) that allows field users to enter ticket and meter provings while offline and then sync with Synthesis when they get back home or to the office. In this session we’ll detail how it works and how you might be able to use the same approaches for your adapters, extensions and applications.

Entessa Test Driven Development & Continuous Integration

A “this is how we do it” walk though Entessa’s development processes, tools, environments and methodologies. Part of the session will focus on Product Development, and part on Delivery and our Professional Services. We’ll share our test driven approach and our use of continuous integration and automated promotion process. Take away time saving and quality improving tips that you can apply to your own development and testing. We’ll touch on CI, integrating open source tools like NANT and NUnit with Visual Studio, what we do with Syn-forge, options for Cloud hosting, virtualization and a whole lot more.

This is most of what we are working on (we do have some surprises up our sleeves too), but its not too late to send us your suggestions. Just add a comment below or email us directly. In the upcoming weeks we’ll blog more details about the UCON.

See you in June!

Let me highlight a few items of interest as we have 2009 now in our rear view mirror.  As a company:

• We solidified our ownership of the market space – winning every RFP and completing the order-to-cash cycle with pipeline scheduling new functionality (as well as lots of other product development wins to numerous to mention all of them in this post).
• We grew our revenue over 43% in 2009.  While we have grown Entessa every year, you read that correct – we had 40+% revenue growth in 2009.  I can’t understate how tremendous an accomplishment this is for 2009.  2010 can now focus on expanding our lead in the space, but this is no trivial accomplishment for Entessa.
• We became more process focused and repeatable – 2009 brought additional hiring and process focus which has resulted in less dependency on individuals and much stronger quality and processes than when we started the year.
• We sold 5 new marquee accounts in 2009 —- Chevron Pipeline, Buckeye Partners, True Companies, Sunoco Inc., and InterPipeline Fund.
• We delivered on our promises – we still have an enviable track record of no failed implementations, even as our implementations continue to grow larger and exponentially more complex.

So, with 2009 now in our rear view mirror, what does 2010 and beyond look like to us?  Not to go into too many details, but some key future items include:

• Continued growth - we’ll continue to grow revenue and headcount in 2010.  That means it will be another busy year and we continue to need referrals for good folks to help us execute our strategy and succeed as a company.
• Product focus – we will likely be completing 2 product releases in 2010, so we will be firing on all cylinders with developing the product and adding features and functions this coming year.
• Deliver – as always, failure is not an option.  We need to make sure our customers stay happy and we keep up the great work with them in the coming year and continue to balance the increased customer demands and requests.
• Personal development – we will continue to offer employees opportunities for stretch assignments and professional growth.  Performance is the only inhibitor at Entessa for the moment, so let’s do great things as individuals that translate to team success.  We’ll set goals and look for ways to not only hit home runs, but have fun along the way.
• Get better every day – as we continue to focus on the blocking and tackling, our unrelenting drive for continuous improvement shapes our culture.

I am personally very proud of everything we have been able to accomplish as a team in the past year.  2009 was Entessa’s best year in many ways beyond just the good numbers.  We need to always remember our product and customer focus and we have the opportunity to make 2010 a truly transformational year as our market leadership is a game changer in the oil and gas logistics space!

Great Job Entessa!

Brian

We’ve taken suggestions from those that attended in the past and combined that with some ideas of our own. Here’s a preview of what’s planned:

Venue & Agenda

First, what’s the same. Since we’ve had great reviews of last year’s location, this year’s conference is also at the JW Marriott in Houston, Texas. We’ve kept the price the same, too. As in the past, it will be over 2 days, starting on Tuesday so that out of town people don’t have to travel on a weekend. The basic format is the same:

Changes to Break-out Sessions

In response to suggestions from last year, we intend to make some enhancements to the way we do the Break-out sessions. First, we’ll have 2 opportunities to see most (if not all) of them. This will mean that you don’t have to choose between conflicting sessions that both sound interesting. Secondly, the duration of sessions will be shortened to 50 minutes. With a 10 minute transition, this will allow us to have a session each hour. In fact many sessions will have 2 topics that will last 25 minutes each. These will be complementary in nature and should be attended as one. Finally, we’ve got some great ideas for interesting presentation formats. Not all sessions will be the usual presenter up front!

Over the next few weeks we’ll share our session ideas as the agenda firms up. We’d obviously like to hear your thoughts so that we can tune the presentations. Please post comments to our blog or just contact us directly.

And there is more…

• Our Synthesis User Council will be convening on the Monday before the conference starts. Marcus & Christy will send out details as we get closer. The council will have been busy helping craft the Synthesis road-map and will report out to the conference attendees later in the week.
• The very popular Customer Appreciation Dinner will be on the Tuesday night.
• Goodies galore
• Plus a Big Announcement – maybe not Apple iPad big – maybe not Tiger Woods press conference big – but big non theless.

Take advantage of the early sign up discounts. Stay tuned for more details and let us know your suggestions.

Registration for Entessa User Conference 2010 is now open. For both individual and group registration, please email the name, email address, company and title (if it has changed from last year) to ucon@entessa.com.

Event Details:

• Date: June 15 – 16, 2010
• Venue: JW Marriott – 5150 Westheimer, Houston, TX
• Conference Cost: $350 (includes meals at Conference). Early Registration by March 16th Receives 10% off.
• Accommodation: A block of rooms is available at conference rate of $184 per night, plus tax.

Conference Highlights:

• All attendees are cordially invited to a Customer Appreciation Dinner in the evening of June 15
• Panel Discussion
• Business and Technical Tracks – Most sessions will be presented twice so you won’t miss the one you want to attend
• Keynote Presentation
• Demonstration of the Latest Synthesis Release
• Small Group Workshops of Product Features
• Network With Industry Peers

We look forward to seeing you at the Conference!

The food industry burns about one-fifth of all petroleum consumed in the United States — that’s about same amount used by all cars. Much of this isn’t simply fuel to run tractors or semi’s to transport vegetables or meat. It begins with how the industrial revolution of the food chain has changed how food is produced. It begins with cheap, abundant, commodity corn.

Commodity corn has taken a sunlight-fueled organism and turned it into a fossil fuel machine. Every bushel of commodity corn requires the equivalent of one and one-third gallons of oil to grow it — 50 gallons per acre. Corn is the most widely produced feed grain in the United States with around 80 million acres of land are planted to corn. That’s nearly 100 million barrels of oil dedicated simply to growing corn using fossil fuel-based synthetic fertilizers, fossil-fuel based pesticides, and fossil-fuel driven machinery.

Because of its availability and low-cost, cattle are are fed a concentrated high-corn diet which produces rapid weight. Petroleum is one of the most important ingredients in the production of meat. Assuming that a steer in its lifetime eats 25 lbs of corn per day and reaches a weight of 1,200 lbs it will have consumed the equivalent of 35 gallons of oil — nearly a barrel.  Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), where most livestock is raised, is virtually city built atop sea of petroleum.

The modern, productive farm is a tremendous accomplishment that has allowed millions of people to be fed through the labors of a small group of farmers and others. However, by relying on fossil fuels instead of the sun for calories, one might want consider the story of the meal: where was it grown, how was it raised, where did it come from — what did it truly cost? A dinner may seem cheap and reasonable, but often its cost can be hidden.

If you are interested in learning more, here are a few links:

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals – “What’s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.” Note: many of the above-mentioned statistics come this Michael Pollan book.

Why Our Food is So Dependent on Oil – “Today the food system is even more reliant on cheap crude oil. Virtually all of the processes in the modern food system are now dependent upon this finite resource, which is nearing its depletion phase.”

Fossil Fuel and Energy Use – “Conventional food production and distribution requires a tremendous amount of energy—one study conducted in 2000 estimated that ten percent of the energy used annually in the United States was consumed by the food industry. Yet for all the energy we put into our food system, we don’t get very much out”

The Oil We Eat – “We learn as children that there is no free lunch, that you don’t get something from nothing, that what goes up must come down, and so on”

For terminal operations, in particular Terminal Truck loadings, the ability to control the access to who can load off of whom is critical for allowing Customers to manage their inventory.  A number of Terminal Automation Systems (TAS) already have this capability – Toptech, Diamond, CSI all can use either TABS or TDS.  However there are a number of issues with the current TAS solutions:

1. Cannot create or handle properly cross terminal and cross TAS allocations.
2. Supplier sequencing unavailable in any system.
3. Limitation with number of validations that can be performed. Validations such as Min/Max, Available inventory, carrier insurance, etc… not supported.
4. Costly – Most of these solutions charge a fee per request. So for each Authorization or Allocation a fee is assessed for using the system.

Synthesis Release 8.0 provides elegant new functionality that addresses these issues and provides improved customer maintenance experience.

Authorizations:
In this release Synthesis reverses its old model where the loading permission was delegated to the terminal to control.  Now Synthesis will use the request model (similar to TABS and in fact supports PDXR) to authorize the loading of product.  This works by sending a request to Synthesis to load for a Shipper, Supplier, Location, Carrier and Date.  Synthesis will then run through its validations to confirm that the Load Authorization is allowed.  These validations currently include in R8:  Min/Max checks (making sure the supplier would not fall below their Min), and Allocation.  However, with the Synthesis Rule engine in place adding new validations in future releases is straight forward process.  Planned validations for future releases include:  Carrier insurance checks, Driver checks, Available inventory checks, Credit Checks, etc…

Allocations:

• The Allocation functionality within Release 8.0 has been significantly improved:
  Creation of multiple time period allocations – Monthly, Daily, Yearly and Custom
• Allocations by Suppliers to Shippers, Shippers to Customers, Customers to Destinations
• Rollover, % increase per allocation and Max rollover allowances
• Improved view and search screens for both Customers and Administrators
• Ties in with Supplier Sequencing for Shipper Allocations

As part of the Rule engine framework Allocation Rules are now validated as one of the validations the Authorization will perform.

Supplier Sequencing:
Synthesis Release 8 now has the ability to specify which Suppliers a Shipper is loading off.  So a Shipper who has been Authorized by a Supplier (Suppliers Authorize a Shipper by creating an Allocation for them) can now specify based on product/location and dates what order they want to pull inventory off of Suppliers. So for example if Shipper X is authorized by Supplier A and Supplier B then Shipper X can say I want to load first off of Supplier A and then off of Supplier B.  They can also specify a time frame or for specific location/product combinations which Supplier to use.  The User Interface for this functionality is also using the latest FLEX framework to allow drag and drop and other dynamic features. 

Overall the changes provided within Synthesis AAS R8 allows both the Terminal Operator and their Customers a much richer ability to manage who , what and when product can be loaded.

A Streamlined Approach - as described in a newsletter from SUN.

Synthesis will enhance efficiency by allowing SUN to consolidate numerous operations under a single application. Once the system is up and running, SUN will be able to decommission numerous applications that are currently using for marine invoicing, demurrage tracking, financial recap, marine reports, vessel maintenance, barge and dock scheduling, and other functions.

Another important benefit SUN will recognize with Synthesis is reducing total demurrage costs by collecting more timely and complete information regarding barge and vessel movements. (Demurrage refers to the costs associated with detaining a ship during loading or unloading beyond the scheduled time of departure.) In addition, better management of dock and vessel assets can reduce disruptions of operations, such as lack of feed and lack of storage. While these costs will not be entirely eliminated, SUN expects to make significant progress once Synthesis is implemented.

Additional anticipated savings will be result of the business process redesign that is part of the project. The objectives for any business process improvement initiative are to make a process more effective, efficient, and adaptable. This will not only save SUN money, but over time, will result in a more smoothly running process which will allow the teams to be more focused on continued improvements.

2009 has been hard for many, and we at Entessa are truly grateful that despite the global recession, we’ve had our best year ever. We especially thank our customers and partners for helping us achieve this success.

Holiday Tree - Presidio

So raise a glass (or two) and all the best from us to yours.

Team Entessa

P.S. According to NORAD, Santa is real. Who are we to doubt. Here’s the proof: http://www.noradsanta.org

Earlier this month, True Pipelines selected us to manage its pipeline order-to-cash process. All of True’s crude pipeline trunk and gathering systems — including Bridger, Butte and Belle Fourche — will use Synthesis when the implementation is completed.

“We are excited to be selected and have the opportunity to work with True Companies. Having a proven track record with managing the logistics process of crude gathering systems, we look forward to True’s personnel to experiencing the benefits of using Synthesis,” stated Marcus Patrinicola, Entessa’s Vice President of Sales.

True Companies operates in 12 states with a combined throughput of over 600,000 barrel of crude oil per day. Synthesis was chosen as the solution for True’s future logistic management after having evaluated various options in the market. Entessa’s practices aligns with True’s philosophy and we look forward to a successful partnership with this new Wyoming-based customer.

Synthesis captures vast amounts of measurement data in its tickets and bills of lading. Most of these artifacts have attributes specific to the product measured. Sure, there is the volume of the ticketed product; but, Synthesis also captures other measured values, such as: Observed Gravity, Observed Temperature, Liquid Temperature, and S&W Factor (to name but a few). Each of these figures represents something amount the nature of that product at the time it was measured.

We can leverage the sheer number these measurements and their associated product values to present some valuable data and information. From this data, Synthesis can derive what some in the industry have called “Product Tolerances” — minimum, maximum, median-range values, with trends.

Product Tolerances would be an excellent use of Tufte’s sparklines:

Above we show five tolerance values for a crude product (Heavy Crude). Synthesis could analyze its data store of tickets to: the first value, the last value, a high and low, an average, the minimum and maximum tolerated range (based on percentage of min and max).

The small sparkline chart shows some several hundred datapoints, but it takes up no more than and inch and a half of screen real-estate. Despite is size — perhaps in fact due to its size — one can quickly see trends and behavior over time. Observed Temperature is fairly consistent until recently. SW Factor is rather jagged, but in fact doesn’t deviate much.

The last columns show how the Product Tolerance analysis can be recycled into the Synthesis Product Specifications data which we introduced in Release 8. By setting the Min/Max specifications, Synthesis could provided additional data entry validation when submitting tickets. For example, if Synthesis knows that the typical tolerated range for Observed Temperature for Heavy Crude is between 52.1° and 88.5°, then if a field operator enters a ticket with a Observed Temperature of 30° then a validation warning could help reduce data entry errors.

This is what Synthesis can do by taking measurement data and presenting it in a  simple, clear, yet informative design using sparklines.