List of drilling management software for drilling contractors

What are the different types of drilling software?

This graphic breaks down the different types of drilling software for drilling contractors.

As you can see, there is some overlap between the categories. For example, drilling operations software has many of the capabilities of reporting or analytics software.

Let's look at the different software types in more detail.

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What is drilling operations software?

Software for drilling contractors to manage their entire operations.

This comprehensive software package includes tools to help plan, manage, execute and report on all aspects of their operations, such as client and staff management, cost records, performance reports, invoice management, contracts, scheduling and more.

It also includes a digitised process for capturing, validating and analysing drilling data to deliver insights into drilling performance.

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Who uses it?

The entire drilling business, from the field to the office - and even clients.

Drillers use a digital plod app to capture drilling data and send it to the drilling supervisor for approval. The office team plan, manage and report on the entire operation using a cloud-based web portal.

Clients can jump into a client portal to approve or reject plod data, view costs and collaborate with the drilling team.

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Why you need to know about it

Exploration budgets are declining, and business costs are rising. Drilling Managers are under a lot of pressure to demonstrate value to win and retain clients.

Operations software can be used by Drilling Managers to demonstrate how they are optimising their client's exploration drilling spend.

Leaning on automation and an ecosystem of digital tools to capture data, generate invoices and produce reports and insights in real-time means that data capture is highly accurate and transparent.

It can also be shared with clients faster, empowering them to make better data-driven decisions around the drill program as they happen, not days or weeks after the drilling has already happened.

That's a happy client!

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Drilling intelligence

Have you heard about a new type of drilling operations software changing the game for drilling managers?

It works by centralising drilling AND operational data in one place, resulting in drilling intelligence insights that haven't been possible before.

Drilling managers can use these insights to protect their bottom lines by identifying data-driven strategies to decrease expenses or increase revenue.

Our Understanding Drilling Software explores drilling intelligence in more depth.

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What is drilling management software?

Drilling software for drilling contractors to manage all aspects of a drilling workflow.

Its capabilities include planning, drilling, billing, analysis, reporting and capturing data from the field for clients.

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Who uses it?

Field and office drilling teams.

Drillers capture the field data and then send it to office teams for review, approval, analysis and billing.

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Why you need to know about it

Drilling Managers want the confidence of knowing that everything is running smoothly in the field. And if it's not, being able to take the right actions to resolve issues.

The problem with using pen and paper or spreadsheets is that getting a complete view of your rigs, teams, costs and performance in one place is challenging.

So how do you know how your business performs at any given moment?

Drilling management software can help you keep your finger on the pulse of your field crews by centralising and standardising all their drilling and activity data in one place. You can see how your rigs or crews contribute to your bottom line and set performance benchmarks across the entire business.

Drilling management software is different to operational software because it’s area of focus is purely on the execution and management of the drilling process in the field, and not the other activities that happen outside of the drilling to run the business.

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What is drilling analytics software?

Software that captures drilling activity data to deliver performance insights.

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Who uses it?

Drilling Managers import, review, and validate drilling data using the software. The software uses the data to produce visual analytics that help to explain performance and identify areas for improvement.

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Why you need to know about it

Drilling Managers need to make decisions that affect the performance and profitability of drilling. Understanding performance is critical to make informed decisions. Analytics can help you identify trends and areas needing improvement and track progress over time.

The traditional way of generating insights involved lots of manual data manipulation and time. But now, thanks to drilling analytics software, insights are generated instantly.

The software empowers you to make data-driven decisions that optimise your operations, reduce costs and increase efficiency. It also means you can detect and diagnose performance issues before they escalate, preventing unnecessary downtime and costs to the business.

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What is drilling reporting software?

Software that analyses drilling data to produce performance reports.

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Who uses it?

Office teams and drilling managers who need to compile field activity reports for internal or external use.

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Why you need to know about it

Manually compiling reports is a massive time-suck for a busy Drilling Manager. It's also highly repetitive - and easy to make mistakes.

By the time you're ready to build reports, you've probably already handled the data at least once or twice since it arrived from the field as part of a validation or approval process. Do you really want to handle it a third time?

The great thing about drilling reporting software is that it builds the reports for you based on the input data. Not only does this save you a lot of time creating reports, but it also means that you can access them sooner, with fewer chances of error, by removing the manual handling aspect.

Reporting software is different to analytics software. Reporting is a way of presenting data, whereas analytics interprets data to produce insights. However, some drilling software offer both capabilities in one package.

Most drilling software that captures drilling data offers some reporting functionality. The depth of reporting varies widely, catering to a range of needs in the industry.

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What is plod management software?

AKA software that enables plod digitisation via the capture, upload, editing and sharing of plod data with clients in a PDF, plus some basic reporting and analytics.

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Who uses it?

Drillers capture the data in the field and then distribute it to the office team for review, management and sharing with the client.

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Why you need to know about it

Plod management software is an extension of digital drill plod software that includes storing, editing and sharing plod data in a web portal.

It acts as a digital HQ for plods, so you're not having to look through folders or transcribe data from paper to spreadsheets. You can turn the data around faster and get it to your clients for review ASAP.

Plod management software can also give you basic reporting and analytics to save time analysing plod data. However, you won't get the same level of insight compared to the comprehensive packages listed above.

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What is digital drill plod software?

Digital drill plod software replaces paper-based drill plods with a digital plod data capture system, such as a mobile app for use in the field.

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Who uses it?

Drillers use it to capture drilling data and produce a PDF export summary of what happened in the field for the client.

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Why you need to know about it

Times are changing, and so are the ways that people work. Drillers don't want to be filling out paper or spreadsheet-based plods after 12 hours in the sun, and it's hard to remember what happened when you're not recording data as you go.

Enter the need for the digital drill plod - a convenient, fast and portable solution for capturing data in the field (even when offline).

Depending on the complexity of your drilling operations, you may need to purchase additional products to track your drill program progress, approve data and invoice clients.

Note: some digital forms software providers also configure their software to reflect a drill plod.

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Where to learn more about drilling software, including which is best for drilling contractors and why?

Hopefully, this post has helped you better understand the different types of drilling software, who is using them, and why.

Drilling Managers must stay informed about the latest developments in the industry, especially regarding the availability of new solutions that can help improve efficiency and reduce costs.

To learn more about drilling software, including which is best for drilling contractors and why, our Understanding Drilling Software has the insights you need to find the right software solution for your team.

List of drilling management software for drilling contractors

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