Nynas finds new ways of working with Synergi Life

When Nynas AB were looking for a new QHSE solution, they came across the independent evaluations performed by Verdantix. This is how their Synergi Life journey began.

Three years ago, Nynas AB knew they had to make a change to a new QHSE software system. “We had our system in Lotus Notes,” says Bjørn Ekman, Director TQM at Nynas, which provides products and services in the oil and gas industry. Lotus Notes was not being developed, and the company needed a change. While doing research on potential software vendors, Ekman came across Verdantix’s Green Quadrant Report, which gives a detailed overview of the market. Verdantix is an independent research and advisory company with expertise in digital strategies for environment, health and safety, sustainability, operational excellence and smart buildings.

“Until that point, I hadn’t heard about Verdantix,” says Ekman. “It was extremely interesting reading. I contacted them and ended up buying the full report. Based on that, we found a number of systems we were interested in, actually about 10 or so. Then we started to dig more into some of them and ended up inviting five companies to give a demo. We were very thorough in our procedures, giving scores for the various capabilities.”

The upshot was that Nynas landed on the purchase of Synergi Life by DNV, and they have been very satisfied with that choice.

Development based on customer feedback

One of the biggest bonuses, he says, is how close they feel they are to the development of the solution they’re using. “We’re part of the future development, part of a wide network of users,” says Ekman. Nynas is regularly in touch with the counterparts at other companies using Synergi Life, as part of the Synergi Life user forum. “We belong to group of companies that can send in requests to improve the product. Sometimes we do end up sending in proposals and change requests, and we see that our feedback is part of development work for every new release. That’s the biggest positive in our choice to use Synergi Life,” says Ekman.

After 90 years in the oil and gas market, Nynas has become a leading international oil company in a number of specialist segments. Nynas has shifted its focus to a more sustainable future, getting the most out of specialty oils for long term use instead of use for combustion. Examples include the production of insulating and cooling oils for transformers, process oils used in many different types of consumer goods and base oils used in metal processing, hydraulic fluids and other lubricants.

The focus on products with a long and useful life, in some cases up to 50 years, differentiates the business from traditional oil companies. Sustainability and a strong focus on quality, health, safety and the environment (QHSE) go hand in hand.

“Synergi Life is really good for investigation of incidents and audits,” says Ekman. “From consequences and loss potential to actions needed. It’s all there.”

For an oil company, Nynas is quite small, with just 1100 users. This makes it agile and simplifies implementation and training.

User-friendliness taken to the next level

“It’s really easy for basic users to register cases,” says Ekman. “We have given training, though they don’t really need it, it’s so intuitive,” he says. “Normally we hear a lot of complaints when we change software, but this time we didn’t.”

The company is using the HSSE incident, Quality, Improvement, Audit and Risk modules, and also made the upgrade to Synergi Life version 16 during 2020. Already from beginning Nynas decided to use the cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS).

What kind of gains have they seen in their HSE work since the implementation of Synergi Life, compared with their previous systems?

More data, more investigations

It’s very hard to actually quantify the gains, says Ekman, because there is much more data gathered now, and the trends they’re working with are based on data after the implementation. “But we are investigating much more now,” says Ekman. “We have a statistical dataset that we’re working with, with 10,000 cases. It’s a bigger database and of course it’s easier to analyse with Synergi Life,” he says. “It’s a stable platform, I don’t see any delays or technical issues.”

“The dashboard is also visually much better than before. The search functions are also good. We’re trying to promote use of it internally, we want more people to use them.”

In total, the Synergi Life solution makes work easy for QHSE management at Nynas. “We have no regrets,” says Ekman. “We even have Synergi Life integrated into our human resources system. We don’t spend any time on user management.”

“Synergi Life is very good for us. I’m pretty sure we would have selected same solution today. It’s a solution that has a strong position in the Nordic countries. It’s a good product. And of course the support we get from DNV is very important. We feel so lucky to be able to work with the Synergi Life team, they’re really supportive.”

About Nynas AB

Nynas AB specializes in naphthenic specialty products (NSP) and bitumen. This sets Nynas apart from most other oil companies, which offer oil as a source of energy. The company’s core competence is in refining heavy crude oil into a balanced mix of long lasting, high performance specialty products for sustainable use. Nynas is the leading brand and global market leader in NSP and a market leader in bitumen in the European markets. Nynas’ products support growth in infrastructure and touch the lives of nearly everyone every day through their presence in roads, roofs, running shoes, adhesives, rubber, paint, magazines and lubricants, which are just some of the thousands of everyday objects that contain Nynas oils.