Mobility Challenges Beyond the Application

Marty Johnson, Lead Mobile Developer for SAP Technical Team, ConocoPhillips

Beginner

In 2010, ConocoPhillips’(COP) journey into the world of mobility began. The initial project was to develop two applications for the field operators – one to perform PM inspections on their pressure relief valves, and the other to perform equipment tracking and data validation using RFID tags. Being the first mobile project of its kind for COP, the company basically started from scratch. The project entailed everything from mobile platform and device selection to handheld application design and support model generation. Each of these steps comes with its own challenges, and it is how you deal with them that makes the project a success or fiasco.

Lessons:
• Choosing the right device is everything. Even the best-designed mobile process
will fail if the device it is installed on is cumbersome or unreadable for the conditions.
One size does not fit all when it comes to picking a device for your mobile processes
• How much data is too much? Today's newer handhelds can handle about as much
data as you would ever need, however, once the data is loaded you have to find a
way to present, sort, search, and select the data in a timely manner
• Customers vs Users: Customers should design the processes, users should
design the screens

Original Go-Live Date: 1995
Current SAP Release: 6.04

Marty Johnson, ConocoPhillips

Marty Johnson joined COP in 1988 and created COP’s (Phillips Petroleumat at the time) first batch handheld application in 1990, and then their first WiFi application in 2001. Along with his mobile application development experience, he is also a senior ABAP developer, supporting the MM, PM, and Remote Logistics Management (RLM) modules. Marty is currently a member of the Mobile Strategy Team, charged with developing and deploying the Global Mobile Strategy for all of ConocoPhillips.