Palo Alto, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/13/2011 -- A Leading Oil & Gas Company from the Middle East has implemented MetricStream GRC solution for Audit Management and Corrective Action / Preventative Action (CAPA) Management. The solution enables the company to automate and integrate audit management across various departments and conduct audits electronically. It also streamlines the investigation and tracking of audit findings, allowing for corrective actions to be taken to improve compliance and safety management. MetricStream provides the industry's most advanced and comprehensive suite of solutions designed to meet the Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) needs of global corporations.

The customer, wholly owned by the Government, is a fully integrated oil company engaged in oil and gas exploration and production, as well as the refining, storage and distribution of petroleum products and natural gas. The company is sharply focused on environment protection and compliance with global standards in safety and quality. In line with best practices, the company has created an Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) policy that integrates the functions of occupational health, industrial safety and environment. The company also has a stringent and rigorous program for safety, quality and compliance management.

Earlier, the company's audit management process required each function - such as Operations, Environment, Health, Fire, Safety and Quality – to conduct audits without a common information system to plan and execute the overall audit program. Over 600 audits have to be completed each year. Moreover, audits were conducted and documented using paper-based processes and standalone spreadsheets. This made data compilation, reporting and tracking excessively resource intensive and time consuming.

With MetricStream Audit Management solution, they are now able to track audits, investigate findings and observations that require corrective actions, reduce costs and effort, and shorten the time required for auditing. In addition, MetricStream's comprehensive GRC Platform has enabled them to adopt an integrated enterprise-wide audit management strategy for sustainable compliance. Utilizing role-based dashboards, compliance and operations managers can reduce incidents, and improve key performance indicators (KPIs) and trend data for specific compliance areas. By tracking leading and lagging indicators to gain visibility into issues, managers can send notifications automatically if operations vary from the expected performance levels. Through integrated auditing – covering environment, health and safety, equipment reliability and maintenance and manufacturing operations – they have gained visibility into performance data to ensure that safety, compliance and risks are being managed effectively.

Commenting on the successful implementation of the MetricStream Audit Management solution, the Audit Manager at the company says, "We chose MetricStream primarily because of its track record in audit and compliance management. Having worked with leading global oil and gas companies, MetricStream is well-known for its feature-rich, user-friendly and flexible solutions. The company understood our requirements and mapped them to their solution to deliver an audit management system that was easy to roll out and has been quickly adopted in our organization."

"We are pleased to have them as an esteemed client in the oil and gas industry. While companies understand the importance of meeting compliance requirements, integrating compliance and audit processes can be a challenge. Only with the right technology can companies adequately address new forms of enterprise and operational safety and risk issues," says Shankar Bhaskaran, GM & VP of International Operations at MetricStream. "With MetricStream's GRC Platform, companies can efficiently manage compliance programs, monitor their business risks and confidently report to management and regulatory agencies."

About MetricStream
MetricStream is a market leader in Enterprise-wide Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) and Quality Solutions for global corporations. MetricStream solutions are used by leading corporations such as Pfizer, Philips, NASDAQ, UBS, SanDisk, Subway, Fairchild Semiconductor and Cummins in diverse industries such as Pharmaceuticals, Medical Devices, Automotive, Food, High Tech Manufacturing, Energy and Financial Services to manage their quality processes, regulatory and industry-mandated compliance and corporate governance initiatives, as well as by over a million compliance professionals worldwide via the http://www.ComplianceOnline.com portal. MetricStream is headquartered in Palo Alto, California and can be reached at http://www.metricstream.com.