Challenge: Minimal preventive maintenance, manual search for spare parts, disconnected systems, no job prioritization, no centralized inventory system, no equipment criticality ranking, high emergency break-ins, excessive overtime, spreadsheet-based reporting, and undefined roles and processes.
Solution: Implementation of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 followed by a transition to Dynamics 365 and Asset Management together with Dynaway Analytics, Advanced Asset Management, Dynaway Analytics, and Planning Board.
Impact: Reduced reactive maintenance, consolidated inventory locations (from 47 to 7), achieved 85%+ schedule compliance, gained real-time insights through analytics dashboards, and improved planning, cost control, and operational consistency.
At one time, CountryMark used to rely on outdated systems and a mostly reactive approach to maintenance. The signs were hard to ignore:
Something had to change.
This article presents how software solutions for oil and gas can solve asset challenges. We spoke with Leslie Day, Management Systems Manager at CountryMark, who shared the full story behind CountryMark’s asset management digital transformation during her session at Dynaway CONNECT 2024, titled “A Deep Dive into Customizations, Analytics, and Our Journey.”
CountryMark manages over 12,000 physical assets in their Refining Division, many of which used to be untracked. These assets were scattered throughout multiple locations without a centralized system prior to their asset management digital transformation. Records were kept in spreadsheets, maintenance was manual, and work orders were not linked to the procurement process. Increased downtime, a growing backlog, and productivity losses were the results of the ensuing inefficiencies.
As Leslie Day shares: “We did not have an inventory system, so we couldn't see what we had. It was a manual search every single time. Every single time that we needed something, we couldn't find it. It was manual purchases, mainly on P cards. So, you had no visibility of those costs. Our maintenance supervisors were coordinating work, random job prioritization. We had a backlog that was the size of Texas, and it just continued to grow”.
In 2015, CountryMark started tackling the challenges encountered by implementing Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. After a thorough ERP selection process, the business determined that AX was the best fit for its size and complexity.
The first phase of change marked a shift toward structure and standardization: a cross-functional team of 30 employees laid the foundation for structured asset management. Together, they defined and documented 43 core work processes, eventually expanding to 196. This way, in addition to a new system, internal alignment was emphasized as a means of creating a culture of excellence in the workplace.
“We would sit in a room for eight hours a day and define the CountryMark processes to support our AX 2012 system,” Leslie recalls. “So we started with 43, and now it’s grown to 196 different processes to reflect the way that we work at CountryMark.”
The benefits were evident:
“AX 2012 succeeded. You can see that we did another reassessment in 2016. We did move up into the proactive level,” says Leslie. “And then another one in 2019. But whenever you start moving up the operations excellence scale, it gets harder and harder to make those improvements. So you can only make incremental jumps up the scale.”
CountryMark’s progress with AX 2012 made it possible to move ahead with confidence.
2021 marked the time of re-implementation, as AX 2012 was reaching the end of life support from Microsoft: “We were on AX 2012 from 2015 to 2021, and then in 2021 we were reaching the end of life support so then organizationally we did another assessment which is going to be best for our organization and we still landed on Dynamics 365” - says Leslie.
Given the circumstances, with a new system, CountryMark saw a chance to modernize. The business strengthened its relationship with Dynaway by moving to Microsoft Dynamics 365. The move to D365 was a step toward smarter, integrated software solutions for oil and gas operations.
To ensure the transition to Dynamics 365 would meet real operational needs, CountryMark didn’t jump in blindly. They began with a gap assessment - a review of what had worked before and what needed improvement. But more importantly, they followed it with a Proof of Concept (PoC): a hands-on test to confirm whether the new asset management setup could truly support the business. The PoC gave CountryMark confidence that Dynaway EAM could deliver what they needed, without the burden of complex customizations:
“Thomas Krogh from Dynaway came on site and did a proof of concept for us,” says Leslie. “The biggest goal was to eliminate as many customizations as possible. And from the time that we were in AX 2012 to D365, a lot of the things that we had customizations for were already in the product.”
As Leslie explains, the focus this time was on a smarter & simpler tool, rather than relying on heavy custom development. The PoC proved that many of the previously customized features had become native to the new product.
The updated Dynaway EAM solution came with built-in capabilities such as:
By limiting customizations, CountryMark reduced long-term support costs, made the system easier for users, and avoided unnecessary complexity. This careful testing phase is a key example of best practices in asset management in the oil and gas industry, where large-scale operations must be validated before rollout.
“D365 is continuous change,” says Leslie, “But the backend is much easier to work with compared to AX 2012.” Thanks to their previous experience with AX 2012, the team was able to take on much of the implementation themselves, with only minimal support from Dynaway.
“We were able to implement with minimal assistance. We had a bucket of hours with Thomas [from Dynaway], so we could reach out when we had questions,” Leslie explains. “He also helped us set up the Planning Board, which was the biggest unknown for us.”
CountryMark connected their D365 data to a central data lake and used Power BI for reporting, allowing them to build real-time insights across operations. While they stay up to date with Microsoft’s regular releases, ensuring their subject matter experts test every update, they intentionally run one version behind on Dynaway updates to ensure system stability.
This approach gave CountryMark flexibility, improved system understanding across teams, and kept them in control of their own maintenance roadmap.
Dynaway Analytics supports data-driven decision-making across CountryMark’s operations. It’s an add-on, which CountryMark implemented alongside its core EAM solution to gain better visibility into performance and planning. The most important KPIs for CountryMark include schedule completion, schedule compliance, reactive work, and backlogs.
“Schedule completion means the job was finished in the week it was scheduled. Schedule compliance measures how many of the scheduled hours actually got completed. We track both because large jobs, like one with 800 hours, can skew the data if you’re only looking at completion.” explains Leslie.
This nuanced view helps teams set more realistic expectations and improve planning accuracy. Every month, shop supervisors at CountryMark review and report on their numbers, and a company-wide summary is sent out by leadership, covering performance in key areas like reactive work, schedule compliance, and backlog. These reports pull directly from Dynaway’s Analytics dashboards.
“Screenshots are taken from here and put into the report that's sent out. We're trying to still work on going out to the solution instead of sending an email, but people still like their paper.”
With access to maintenance analytics, CountryMark continues a more transparent, data-focused maintenance culture. This data-centric approach is essential to asset management in the oil and gas industry.
The Dynaway upgrade was only the beginning of CountryMark's asset management digital transformation journey. About 300 users will be joining Dynaway Mobility (Dynaway Mobile), allowing for field-level real-time maintenance requests and updates. The complete asset bill of materials (BOM) and asset criticality definitions for all refining equipment are still being worked on. The business uses tools like Microsoft DevOps to manage improvements and guarantee consistency across environments, and Executive Automats for regression testing.
The company is establishing a culture of proactive maintenance through the deployment of mobility tools, additional analytics integration, and criticality assessment completion. Enhancing Dynaway's kit closure automation, improving planning board views, and further optimizing preventive maintenance programs are among the future plans.
If your maintenance is still reactive, it’s time to change that. Read more about Dynaway EAM or contact us at help@dynaway.com
Founded in 1919, CountryMark is an American-owned, fully integrated oil and gas cooperative with its main office located in Indiana. The cooperative's core members are its farmer-owners, who serve agricultural communities in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky. From exploration and production to refining and downstream retail activities, CountryMark manages the whole value chain.
As an example of asset management in the oil and gas industry, here is a brief overview of the scale of their operations: