In an era of high workforce turnover, capturing operational knowledge is vital to improving safety and achieving operational excellence. Modern solutions must address not only the replacement of paper-based processes, but also contextually weave together multidisciplinary information in a form that provides a holistic view of equipment across an operation. Going forward, the oil and gas industry should have intelligent, automated systems designed to capture data, learn from events, optimize production, and prevent safety-related incidents. The time is now for this step change in the industry as these fully integrated systems will become as necessary and as expected as the use of tablets and laptops.
Trends and events in the oil and gas industry in recent years have shown that the focus on operation, maintenance, and safety requires more integration and embedding into operational processes. The industry has been aware of the issue of staff turnover for some time and the causes are not just aging baby boomers, but a change in working trends. The retention of employees is no longer assured through incentives, such as a good pension package, and the modern workforce recognizes that their skills are highly transportable. Lives are built more around portability, and information that would encourage one to realize new ambitions is more readily available than ever before. What attracted and retained previous generations of the workforce no longer has the same appeal. The industry must adapt to this new status quo and protect against the increasing risk that vital, safety-related information could disappear from an organization.
With increased staff turnover, the risk that an organization might not keep required information is particularly high in activities that are not part of daily operations. Less frequent occurrences, such as an operation startup or coming out of a turnaround process, may leave the company particularly vulnerable. Information may be especially limited when it comes to taking long-life, rarely cycled equipment in and out of operation. However, it is under such less frequent conditions that accidents are more likely to occur.
To combat the loss of knowledge retained by staff, intelligent systems should be not only work-process driven but also capture valuable information. These systems must be used by both seasoned and new employees and to capture and harness knowledge about various aspects of operations. They should learn, be intelligent, and make the knowledge they contain clearly available to operators as they work. In this way, when there are transitions, abnormal conditions, or opportunities for improvement, operators and engineers have ready access to the background and information gained from the past 20 years of accumulated knowledge. Such a system is a living, breathing application beyond anything that has been used in the industry to date.
The loss of retained knowledge with workforce turnover is not a new problem and companies have been working on tools to address this. A lot of what has been seen in the market to date, however, involves narrow solutions. They are systems that replace paper and bring improvements, but they do not fully capture experience and knowledge in a way that ultimately provides simple, quick, and critical information where and when it is needed. Future systems should be based on a -systematic approach that encompasses multiple disciplines. Take any rotating piece of equipment, for example. It brings together mechanical and electrical engineering, and both disciplines must operate together in a highly efficient manner for the right results. Similarly, knowledge systems must have a holistic multidisciplinary view of equipment.
Putting such systems in place will protect the future of the oil and gas industry, but will require focus and investment. Operations, safety, and other disciplines must come together to obtain results that will increase productivity and improve safety. These systems cannot be developed as small, tactical projects but should encompass all areas of the operation.
Although such work has been happening over the past decades from a work/process perspective, the processes have not been well automated or made intelligent. An investment change is needed for companies to enable their intellectual property and to capture exiting knowledge going forward. To be clear, companies are acting and proactively investigating this area, but further investment would enable them to complete and maybe even maintain their operations in the future.
Some organizations, especially those with recent safety issues, have been exploring intelligent knowledge capturing in detail. Many have kicked off internal projects to investigate this area and are starting to talk with third parties that might be able to help them. When the value of pilot projects is realized and understood, there should be a significant increase in investment and mobilization of effort and resources beginning this year, resulting in the rapid development and deployment of intelligent knowledge systems.
Ultimately, the industry cannot keep doing the same thing and expect different results. Knowledge capture systems cannot just be electronic filing cabinets but must provide valuable, real-time information as part of day-to-day operations. They need to convert historical data and knowledge into clear, intelligent operational strategy and guidance. Their design philosophies and paradigms must be adaptable, enabling protection and improvement into the future.
The development of such systems will take significant investment, but returns will be significant as well and will apply in multiple areas. In some ways, they will be insurance policies, future-proofing against incidents going forward. They will, however, also offer the potential for significant improvements to throughput, enabling optimization of both operations and maintenance of facilities. They will provide the opportunity for current workers to gain more knowledge and understanding of target equipment along with the individuals who are operating and maintaining them, thus enabling work and processes to be carried out in the most efficient ways. They are an operational and safety investment that will continue to show returns in the availability and reliability of assets along with improved personnel efficiency.
Intelligent, consolidated knowledge vehicles within oil and gas operations will surely become an expectation in the future. When we look back, these systems may well show the sort of step change seen in the move from calculators to computers. They will certainly deliver real and significant benefits to the industry, the level of which may be more than anticipated once the true value of the information captured is realized.
Andrew Soignier is vice president of oil, gas, and petrochemical solutions at Ventyx, an ABB company. He is responsible for Ventyx’s global product and business strategy, and directly oversees its software in the areas of operations, safety, and asset health. Before joining the company in 2007, Soignier spent 11 years in the process automation industry with a focus on electrical, process safety, critical control, and rotating equipment. He holds a BS degree in electrical engineering and an executive MBA degree from Louisiana State University. He is a licensed professional engineer in Louisiana.