By TJ Felts, Director of Capital Projects, Asset Performance Networks
Capital projects are the foundation of heavy industry. From petrochemical expansions to manufacturing upgrades, these investments determine whether companies thrive or struggle. Yet most organizations manage these projects in isolation, missing opportunities to optimize their entire portfolio despite the efforts at digital transformation.
Asset Performance Networks (AP-Networks) built Oryx to solve this problem. It’s the first AI/ML-powered benchmarking tool designed specifically for capital project portfolios in heavy industry. It leverages AP-Networks’ 20 years of data to provide predictive analytics in a streamlined series of dashboards. Instead of managing scattered spreadsheets and fragmented data, Oryx gives you a centralized view of everything happening across your projects.
The result? Companies using Oryx report dramatic improvements in ROI and strategic alignment. They realize cost savings and minimize the total cost of ownership. They make faster decisions, allocate resources more effectively, and turn project data into competitive advantage.
The Challenge: Why Traditional Project Management Falls Short
Most companies evaluate capital projects individually, one at a time. They optimize individual sites, draw conclusions from small samples, and wonder why their overall portfolio underperforms. This approach adds risk exposure by ignoring the systemic issues that destroy value across the asset lifecycle.
Leadership Operates in the Dark: Decision-makers rarely have complete, accurate, real-time data. Information sits in silos across different systems and teams. When market conditions shift, leadership can’t quickly assess the impact across their portfolio.
Portfolio Strategy Disconnects from Reality: Business priorities change, but project portfolios don’t adjust accordingly. Strategy and execution become misaligned. Resources get wasted on projects that no longer serve the company’s goals.
KPIs Measure the Wrong Things: Many performance indicators exist for measurement’s sake rather than driving results. Companies track metrics that don’t actually maximize value or improve outcomes.
Benchmarking Takes Forever: Creating meaningful benchmarks requires manual effort across multiple systems. By the time companies finish the analysis, market conditions have changed. Scenario planning becomes impossible.
Data Lives Everywhere and Nowhere: Project information spreads across ERP systems, spreadsheets, emails, and individual computers. Teams can’t collaborate effectively because they can’t access the same information.
Resource Allocation Becomes Guesswork: Without clear visibility into project requirements and resource availability, companies make allocation decisions based on incomplete information.
AP-Networks’ research shows the average facility loses 30% of intended project value each year due to these systemic issues.
Oryx: A Smarter Approach to Portfolio Management
Oryx changes how heavy industry manages capital projects. Instead of struggling with disconnected systems, you get one platform that provides complete visibility into your entire portfolio. This platform is cloud-native, secure, and scalable from an individual Project Manager’s selected projects up to an entire company’s multi-billion dollar portfolio.
See Everything in Real Time: Oryx pulls data from your existing systems and presents it in a unified dashboard. Leadership and project managers work from the same information, updated continuously.
Turn Data into Decisions: The platform identifies trends, bottlenecks, and opportunities across your portfolio. You can drill down into specific projects or analyze patterns across business units.
Improved Project Selection and Prioritization: Project teams and business leaders have automated portfolio evaluation through Oryx, allowing enhanced focus to increase value.
Benchmark Against What Matters: Compare performance internally across your sites or externally against industry standards. Oryx makes benchmarking fast and automatic instead of slow and manual.
Test Ideas Before Committing: Run unlimited scenarios to see how different strategies, investments, or resource allocations would affect value delivery. Make decisions based on data, not guesswork.
Speed Up Critical Decisions: When issues arise, stakeholders have immediate access to the information they need. Problems get resolved faster because everyone works from accurate, current data.
Implementation: Getting Started Fast
Oryx deployment follows a proven methodology that gets you running quickly while ensuring long-term success:
Connect Your Data Sources: We identify the systems where your project data lives: ERP platforms, spreadsheets, custom databases. Then we prepare secure connections to pull that information into Oryx.
Automate Data Flow: Set up APIs and import schedules so your platform stays current without manual effort. Fresh data is delivered at intervals you define.
Validate Critical Information: We verify key facility data including production capacities, asset values, and staffing plans. Accuracy matters, so we make sure the foundation is solid.
Customize for Your Business: Configure benchmarks, fields, and evaluation criteria that reflect your specific priorities and industry requirements.
Deploy and Improve: Launch across your portfolio and continuously refine based on user feedback and changing business needs.
This approach delivers value quickly while building a platform that scales with your organization.
Results: What Companies Achieve with Oryx
Organizations using Oryx report significant improvements across their capital project portfolios. Results include reduction in cost of 30%, 50% faster durations, and overall reduction in risk for the project portfolio.
Strategic Alignment Gets Real: Projects actually support business priorities instead of running on autopilot. Teams can quickly adjust portfolios when strategies change, enabling proactive management instead of reactive crisis response.
Decisions Happen Faster: Leadership sees problems and opportunities as they develop. The lag between issue identification and resolution shrinks dramatically when everyone works from current, accurate information.
Resources Go Where They’re Needed: Clear visibility into project requirements and workforce capabilities eliminates guesswork in resource allocation. Companies reduce waste and redundancy while ensuring critical projects get proper support.
Continuous Improvement Becomes Normal: Regular benchmarking creates a culture focused on getting better rather than just getting by. Data drives improvement efforts instead of intuition or politics.
Knowledge Stays in the Organization: A centralized repository prevents knowledge loss when people leave. Best practices get captured, shared, and replicated across sites instead of dying with individual expertise.
The bottom line: Oryx transforms capital project management from a collection of isolated efforts into a coordinated, value-driven system.
Asset Performance Networks’ Oryx platform is available for implementation across heavy industry sectors. To learn how Oryx can transform your capital project portfolio management and enhance ROI, contact Asset Performance Networks today.
Contact Details: Daniel Phan, Regional Manager – Asia Pacific ([email protected])
