BLOG

Suppose that you want to prepare a schedule where the activities are sequenced in a way that meets plan or budget targets, so that your schedule maintains a specific value for some objectives over time. For example, you want to manage your drilling and completion program so that the expected production output from a field is within 5% of a specific quantity each month, or you want to carry out preventive maintenance so that resource use and costs are held close to a quarterly target, to ensure that you aren't under- or over-utilizing crews and equipment.

Our applications are primarily aimed at individual “power users”: that is, the people in an organization that manage operational plans and schedules, and update them on a regular basis. Our drag-and-drop Gantt interface and real-time impact analysis features give the user immediate insight into how those updates will alter key business objectives, such as cost, risk, and equipment utilization.

What we are often seeing these days, though, is that the collaboration potential that results from use of our products is regularly raised in discussions with our customers, and is seen by them as a critical benefit.

Today we're announcing a significant new capability: integration of Actenum DSO with Microsoft Project.

“Real-time decision-making” is getting more attention in the intelligent energy field these days. David Latin, Executive Co-chair of the SPE Intelligent Energy 2010 Conference, outlines the theme of this year's conference by saying that “Real-time decision making has moved from delivering data to people to packaging the information to help people make decisions in real time affecting the bottom line.”

This evolution is encouraging, but it only addresses part of the challenge. Is “packaging information” enough to help you to make complex operational decisions in changing conditions?

“You think you've got a hold of it all
You haven't got a hold at all”
    Get the Balance Right, Depeche Mode (1982)

Suppose that you're working to make significant improvements in a part of your business, and have developed an organizational transformation strategy to do so. What is the correct balance of workflow, behaviour, and technology that is required for your project to be successful?

Not the spare capacity that's essential to success; I mean the hidden, unwanted capacity that's a drain on your costs and that's there because of inefficiency.

If more E&P companies applied classic project management principles to the well project drilling process, how much would this lower costs and increase overall drilling program efficiency?

We recently benchmarked our Actenum Rig Activity Scheduler (RAS) application against a manually-derived operational drilling schedule obtained from one of our clients, a large oil producer. We achieved:

• A 6% reduction in rig transportation costs, and
• A 38% reduction in time to production, which translated into
• More than a 15% increase in net present value.

We're going to hear a lot more about using software that takes an active role in our decision making process.

Now that the Big Crew Change is upon us, and the easy oil is gone, oil and gas producers not only have to focus on rebuilding their base of knowledgeable employees. They also have to maintain existing projects—and develop new ones—while losing the senior people who possess the skills and knowledge to make effective operational decisions in challenging situations.