Owen Plowman's blog

Today we're announcing a significant new capability: integration of Actenum DSO with Microsoft Project. We've been able to exploit the open architecture of Actenum DSO to support a ‘round trip’ with Microsoft Project. That is, we can use Actenum DSO to open and read an input data file in Microsoft Project format, update and optimize it in any way required, and then publish it back to Microsoft Project.

Initially we targeted Microsoft Project 2010 with this capability, since it's the latest release, but it turns out that the integration capability also works for earlier versions of Microsoft Project, as well as Microsoft Excel. In principle, we can easily extend it to work with other applications, and we can import and export any sort of intermediate file type.

Why do I say this is a ‘significant capability’? Watch this short video and you'll see how much more productive you can be with Microsoft Project when you use it in conjunction with DSO.

“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?

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.

We're working on a proper architectural framework for planning and scheduling in production organizations. It provides a coherent process approach for the various activities and time horizons related to planning and scheduling, and also serves as a basis for the use of our technology solutions.

I’ve written about the Perfect Plant concept before, after digging into it at last year’s SAP Adaptive Manufacturing Summit.

Earlier this month I was at Carnegie Mellon University attending the Center for Advanced Process Decision-making (CAPD) Annual Review Meeting, at the kind invitation of Professor Ignacio Grossman. CAPD brings together industry practitioners (primarily from process industry organizations) and academia, and harnesses a lot of brain power to work on some tough industrial optimization and process systems challenges.

In an earlier post I made some observations about the distinction between planning and scheduling. In terms of complex production organizations, planning is generally done in a “slow loop”, and establishes targets for the operational side of the organization to follow. Scheduling is then done in a “fast loop” at an operational level to allocate assets and resources so that these targets are met.

In my earlier post on making decisions, I noted that the use of models is a useful way of applying automation, consistency, and reusability to the decision-making process. When somebody makes decisions based on intuition, they’re really using an informal mental model that can’t be easily explained or shared with others (and that is, quite possibly, incomplete and therefore unreliable). Expressing the situation in a more formal model can be very difficult, but raises the quality of decisions a great deal.