NNPC launches three new apps for to respond to the Covid-19 health crises and equally enhance business operations.
The nation’s oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), has launched a number of work applications as it scales up its use of technology to power operations and processes, spokesperson, Dr. Kennie Obateru, said today, 3 June 2020 in Abuja.
Among the apps launched recently are those that enable the Company perform contact tracing in the event of a health emergency and others that enable petroleum products buyers perform seamless online purchases and payments.
NNPC’s head of Information Technology Division, David Inuwa, explained the uses of the apps.
The contact tracing application, deployed to NNPC offices and locations, captures visitors and the persons they meet with.
The app “reveals all information about persons visiting any official. Should there be any medical challenge, the NNPC Medical Team tracks contacts from the database and advises properly.”
NNPC hopes the app assists in managing the spread of Covid-19 in all its offices and locations, Inuwa said.
The corporation also plans to deploy the application to homes of interested staff to document their private visitors.
Sales and Distribution Apps
A second software application has already been launched to minimize human contacts in business transactions at the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), Inuwa also announced.
The software, a Sales and Distribution app named “Customer Express” enables marketers to “register, validate and revalidate their Bulk Purchase Agreements online within a week.”
It also assists the corporation to “track every molecule of products being imported, transported and sold at every given time,” he said.
According to Inuwa, the application dashboard also indicates “what product is in transit in terms of volume, what quantity is in the jetty, what volume has gone into the pipelines, what quantity has gone into NNPC depots, private depots and refinery depots.
“So, we have accurate accounting of every molecule of products that we have in our system,” he disclosed.
Major marketers are already using the application to purchase products while independent marketers, depot and petroleum marketers, and other operators in the downstream sector are expected to join soon.
Continuous upscaling is key – NNPC
Inuwa said that even before the recent lockdown arising from Covid-19 pandemic, the Corporation has adapted to the imperatives of conducting business the modern way using technology.
For instance, he says that there is an application that now enables the Corporation’s managers to see the volume of stocks in the tanks of all NNPC Retail stations across the country and that ticketing has equally been digitized.
The Covid-19 challenge has also enabled the Corporation to perfect virtual meetings in order not to disturb its operations.
So far, various NNPC offices and locations using meeting apps have logged over 4,000 virtual meetings and created therefrom a record “9.3million minutes of audio time, 6.7million minutes of video time and 2.1million minutes of screen shared times.”
He added that the robust IT business continuity plan conceived and implemented under the leadership of Mallam Mele Kyari as Group Chief Executive, has considerably enhanced efficiency in the corporation’s workforce.
NNPC launches new apps for health crises
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