For example, paper and Excel spreadsheets work! Many operators like paper because it's simple, others prefer Excel because it's cost-effective. And, while these solutions indeed work when you're producing 15 or 20 wells, they quickly start to break down once you start to grow (or divert your attention somewhere besides ushering these reports...) Rather than comparing those tickets against those oil purchaser statements, Admin is stuck tracking down missing run tickets. They'd like to be sending out reports to managers, investors, and State agencies, but they're trapped just trying to put these reports into something workable... They're trapped in the cycle of meta-work. Work, that for lack of a better synopsis, fills our days but isn't that important. Does it keep us busy? Oh yeah. Does it move our company forward? Absolutely not. Meta-work robs us of a sense of completion and a job well done. It's vicious, and it's got us by the balls ballbearings... As for management, it's a completely different set of issues. Given their current tools, they've always accepted that 'missing oil' was something they simply must except in the oilfield. They realize they must trust their pumpers (the front line!), and short of going to the field and gauging the tanks themselves they have no way to verify their production numbers. If they knew, many skimming oil purchasers and services companies would be dropped. However, there's no way to verify -- their tools leave them disengaged with the field. Essentially, they're flying blind. Remember, the first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. Basically, we don't add people to broken systems. People are expensive. If Operator A manages 100 wells with a staff of 5 and Operator B manages 100 wells with a staff of 12 -- all things being equal -- Operator A wins. His investors win. And, perhaps most importantly, his employees win. For Operator A, Sub-$50 oil doesn't look so bad anymore. It ain't party time, but no one is closing their doors either. We've seen hundreds of examples of pumper production reports from all corners of the country. Some of these gauge sheet templates haven't changed since the 1940s. And others are nothing short of a work of art! If you would like to know more, check out www.greasebook.com.