From operational efficiency to asset performance - how Precision Drilling used SAP S/4HANA to turn asset data into operational intelligence

Are the challenges of ERP modernization worth the investment? With so many choices to consider for tech innovation, it’s a question worth asking. In the case of SAP customers, lining up an S/4HANA migration with a new data governance strategy is a compelling option, but what does that entail?

Precision Drilling framed their S/4HANA migration in the context of an enterprise data evolution — one that included compliance, master data standards, and real time visibility. Could they move beyond operational effectiveness, and achieve a new level of insight into asset performance?

When Precision Drilling began its SAP S/4HANA journey in 2017, the company was already operating at scale. Founded in 1951 as a small onshore drilling company with a single rig, Precision Drilling had grown into one of the largest land drilling contractors in North America, supporting oil and natural gas development across major basins in Canada and the U.S., with a growing international footprint that includes the Middle East.

But scale alone wasn’t the end goal. For Precision Drilling, the next phase of growth required deeper visibility into asset performance, lifecycle costs, and maintenance decisions—visibility that legacy systems could no longer reliably provide.

 Elisa Smith, Global Manager of Operation Assets at Precision Drilling said, 

We were already operating effectively but what we truly wanted to do was take our operations and data to the next level by becoming much more granular in how we tracked and reported on asset lifecycle cost and overall asset performance.

Smith spoke with ASUG at the ASUG Best Practices for Oil, Gas, and Energy conference, where she detailed how Precision Drilling leveraged SAP S/4HANA not only to modernize its ERP environment, but to fundamentally reshape its approach to data governance, asset management, and decision-making.

From operational success to data-driven precision

As Global Manager of Operation Assets, Smith’s role focuses on optimizing asset management and lifecycle cost through data governance, digital tools, and cross-border equipment strategies. She has been closely involved in Precision Drilling’s SAP S/4HANA journey from the beginning, helping transform how the company manages data and makes decisions across its global operations.

The catalyst for change was not a single pain point, but a collection of limitations that became more visible as the business scaled. Precision Drilling wanted a clearer line of sight into total cost of ownership for its assets, along with scalable processes that could support different operating models across regions. 

Smith continues, 

Our goal was to strengthen decision-making by having a clear line into the total cost of ownership of our assets. At the same time, we wanted to build scalable processes that could support the different operating models we run across regions.

The leadership team also understood that technology transformation alone wouldn’t be enough.

We knew this would have a significant organizational impact. Shifting mindset is usually just as challenging as shifting systems.

Building the foundation — standards first, reporting built in

From the outset, Precision Drilling made a deliberate decision to design processes and data structures for visibility and reporting from day one.

We realized that we needed processes and data design for visibility and reporting from the very beginning.That’s why we decided to align with ISO 14224 to structure our data and ensure reporting would be a core capability.

The company began with a pilot project in its international division, using the opportunity to build its data foundation from the ground up. The pilot included a significant master data effort that touched nearly every aspect of asset management.

We developed master data standards for all our object types. We built our equipment and functional location hierarchy in SAP, developed maintenance strategies that included task lists, additional measuring points we didn’t have in ECC, and bill of materials.

Precision Drilling also introduced fault and failure codes to improve the quality of repair and inspection data captured in SAP notifications. In parallel, the company launched initiatives to improve master data in the supply chain, including material master builds, interchangeable part numbers, and information records to manage contract pricing.

That pilot project really allowed us to validate our approach and demonstrate the effectiveness of the standards. At the same time, it revealed the limitations of what ECC could deliver compared to what we now have with S/4HANA.

Why S/4HANA was the right choice

Following the success of the pilot, Precision Drilling moved forward with a greenfield implementation of SAP S/4HANA in North America in 2018. For Smith and her team, S/4HANA represented an opportunity to move away from a heavily customized ECC environment and toward standardized best practices.

In ECC, we often had to build custom solutions to meet business needs. That added complexity and made it harder to scale or adopt capabilities quickly.

With S/4HANA, Precision Drilling was able to simplify its ERP landscape by staying within SAP’s standard framework and relying less on customization.

That gives us a clear path to benefit from SAP’s continuous innovation. The platform gives us reliability, speed, and continuous improvement, but the value comes from how we apply those capabilities to our business.

One of the most immediate improvements came in reporting performance. In the ECC environment, reporting often depended on batch jobs and reconciliation processes, and some critical reports were either unavailable or difficult to maintain.

With S/4HANA, we now have real-time visibility into our operations and asset lifecycle cost. That longstanding reporting gap has been addressed.

From static reports to actionable intelligence

Beyond performance, Smith pointed to improvements in user experience as a major factor in adoption and value realization.

Smith explains, 

We went from the traditional SAP GUI in ECC to more role-based Fiori apps in S/4HANA. That made it easier for our teams in the field to get their work done.

Precision Drilling extended its analytics capabilities further by leveraging SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), building dashboards that delivered forward-looking insights instead of static reports. SAC dashboards provide visibility into equipment readiness, open work orders, lifecycle cost forecasts, and work order aging based on defined thresholds.

We’re not just capturing data anymore. We’re using it in real time to drive better decisions and shape our maintenance strategies.

Data governance as a business discipline

As Precision Drilling’s analytics capabilities matured, data governance emerged as a critical enabler of trust and adoption.

For us, data governance is not just about having clean tables. It’s about making sure the data supports smarter asset decisions in the field and in the office.

Rather than treating governance as a one-time cleanup effort, Precision Drilling embedded it into daily operations using dashboards and exception reporting. For example, SAC dashboards that focus on finance and supply chain processes now highlight discrepancies with the click of a button. Different teams use the same dashboards for different purposes, from financial reviews to operational oversight, ensuring that issues are identified and addressed quickly.

At the end of the day, governance is about trust. We’re a very asset-driven business, but we think of ourselves as a data-driven company that drills wells.

Moving up the maturity curve faster

After upgrading to S/4HANA, Precision Drilling was able to accelerate its journey from basic data collection to true operational intelligence.

What S/4HANA really gave us was the ability to combine trusted ERP data with operational data coming directly from our equipment. Now we have both the business and operational context around how our assets are running and the cost associated with them.

Smith described the evolution as a progression from data collection to analysis and, ultimately, storytelling. S/4HANA enabled Precision to get the first steps right by collecting and preparing data in a structured way.

From there, tools like SAC give us the insights we need, and storytelling allows us to share a trustworthy narrative with stakeholders across the organization.

Turning insights into better maintenance decisions

Precision Drilling has paired its SAP foundation with automation and advanced analytics to further improve asset maintenance. Strong data governance and dashboards are paired with automation that takes data from rigs and turns it into consistent, reliable drilling actions.

In addition, the company’s internally developed operational digital twin processes more than a billion data points per day, aggregating information from multiple sources and applying advanced analytics in real time.

That ability helps our teams prioritize assets that need attention immediately and plan maintenance more strategically off the critical path of operations.

Lessons for enterprises preparing for S/4HANA

As more organizations prepare for S/4HANA adoption ahead of upcoming maintenance deadlines, Smith emphasized the importance of clarity, standards, and ownership.

Start with clarity on what outcomes you want to achieve. Data for the sake of data doesn’t move the business forward.

For Precision Drilling, tying data strategy to tangible outcome such as uptime, cost reduction, and actionable insights for field teams was essential.

Master data has to be your foundation. Without consistent standards, hierarchy, and governance, you’ll always question the quality of your insights.

Equally important is making governance a daily practice.

Dashboards and exception reporting make data quality part of the business rhythm. It’s not an afterthought.

Finally, Smith stressed that data strategy is a shared responsibility, not just an IT initiative.

Everyone has a role to play, and when people see how trusted data improves safety, uptime, and financial decisions, that’s when adoption really takes hold. Data strategy isn’t just about technology - it’s about trust, ownership, and outcomes that matter to the business.

Hear more stories like this on the ASUG Talks podcast series, updated weekly with new episodes on breaking SAP stories, ASUG research and customer field lessons.