When economic uncertainty tightens budgets, companies often lack the resources to bring in expensive consultants or implement new systems. Buckeye Partners, a major petroleum company with thousands of miles of pipeline and over 100 terminals across the eastern United States, faced this exact challenge. Instead of looking outward, they turned inward, embarking on a multi-year journey to realign data, processes, and systems using JD Edwards. The result: a new way of asset lifecycle enhancement, improving compliance, reducing tax burdens, and creating transparency across the organization.

The Challenge: Two Universes of Data

Buckeye’s operations team managed functional locations — equipment tags tied to regulatory compliance and preventive maintenance schedules. At the same time, the finance team managed financial assets — records of cost, depreciation, and taxes. These parallel “universes” rarely communicated.

• Operations focused on regulatory inspections and work orders.
• Finance tracked costs but lacked visibility into asset condition and usage.
• The tax department wrestled with “ghost assets” — items that had been removed in reality but lingered on financial schedules, leading to unnecessary tax payments.

The result was duplication, misalignment, and significant financial exposure.

Enter the Asset Lifecycle Enhancement Project (ALE)

In 2018, Christina Mendez and her team proposed a bold solution: the single asset concept. Instead of fragmented data, they would unify financial and operational records under one lifecycle model. This initiative became the Asset Lifecycle Enhancement (ALE) project—a four-to-five-year effort to align the past and create a sustainable future.

The ALE team tackled challenges step by step:

• Defining “asset.” Multiple stakeholders had conflicting interpretations, so an agreed definition and asset matrix were established.
• Standardizing data. Hierarchies were created so that individual parts rolled up into equipment families, facilities, and terminals, allowing costs to be tracked consistently.
• Redesigning work orders. Work orders became the backbone for tracking labor, maintenance, purchases, and asset movement. Customizations like the “swap” process allowed assets to move between locations while retaining history.
• Training and change management. From buyers to field technicians, employees were taught new ways of purchasing, tagging, and maintaining equipment.

Navigating Resistance and Breaking Silos

The project wasn’t easy. Compliance, accounting, operations, and tax teams all had entrenched processes. As Christina noted, meetings often felt like “prize fights,” with each side protecting their territory. Success came from:

• Persistent leadership support.
• Transparent communication about how changes would benefit every department.
• Listening carefully to “naysayers,” whose feedback uncovered hidden gaps and new opportunities.

By breaking down silos, Buckeye created bridges between departments, ensuring that everyone worked from the same data foundation.

Tangible Results

The ALE project delivered measurable benefits:

• Improved accuracy in asset verification. Field teams now confirm specific tagged equipment instead of vague descriptions like “40 valves.”
• Significant cost savings. A recent fixed asset verification showed savings of nearly two-thirds on tax and depreciation expenses—cutting potential costs from $5 million to $1.5 million.
• Better decision-making. With unified data, Buckeye can now measure metrics such as meantime between failure (MTBF), identify “bad actors” among equipment or vendors, and assess true lifecycle costs.
• Powerful KPIs. By linking costs directly to assets and locations, Buckeye can evaluate performance across the entire organization, enabling smarter procurement and long-term planning.

Looking Ahead

While legacy data still requires ongoing conversion, Buckeye has proven that aligning operational and financial records pays off. By leveraging JD Edwards, internal expertise, and perseverance, the company turned a fragmented system into a cohesive lifecycle management strategy—without relying on outside vendors.

Christina Mendez’s story is a powerful reminder that the past can be aligned with the present to build a stronger, more efficient future.

Want more?

Explore more content and resources to help you get the most from your JD Edwards investment:

• Be sure to check out the INFOCUS 2025 Event Hub (coming soon) for presentation slides – available exclusively to Quest members.
• Explore the JD Edwards Orchestrator Strategic Content Center for more Quest-exclusive resources.
• Visit the Quest Learn Library for blogs, how-to demos, and on-demand sessions.
• Connect with peers in one of our Quest JD Edwards Community User Groups to swap stories, ask questions, and share tips with other users facing the same challenges.

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