Newsletters
Newsletters
March 2012 Newsletter
- Publication Updates
- The Formula 1 Racing / Drilling Systems Analogy
- The Great Rig Race - it already started
October 2011 Newsletter
- Drilling system automation
- Can lean manufacturing be applied to all business process types?
- To be or not to be a General Contractor
August 2011 Newsletter
- Business Process Distinction is Critical to Applying Correct Drivers for Operations Performance
- Engineering Variances
How they affect Manufacturing and Construction
Notes - On the Fly
January 2011 Edition
This edition covers:
- Drilling Systems Automation on Tipping Point
- Manufactured Well™ - a wave of the future
- Business Stage Distinction - a necessity for start ups
January 2006 Edition
This edition covers:
-- Standardization - a source of cost reduction and performance improvement
- Higher and Lower Oil and Gas Prices - the need for Scenario planning.
-- Performance Improvement - what about office processes?
December 2004 Edition
This edition covers:
-- Five years into the new millennium - what comes next?
-- Can Lean Management improve your organization's performance?
-- Will the oil price rise or fall? - yes it will!
August 2004 Edition
This edition covers:
-- How can major oil companies grow organically?
-- Is Lean Manufacturing just another form of cost cutting?
-- Can Lean Manufacturing techniques improve maintenance performance?
-- Where in the world are we heading?
March 2004 Edition
This edition covers:
- More oilfield service mergers on the way?
- Personnel shortages overstated?
- Are engineers relying too much on black boxes?
Reviews
Understanding and Managing Uncertainty in Projects
Uncertainty is something that is partially or completely unknown. It is similar to but subtly different from risk. A risk is the possibility that something can go wrong that interferes with completion of the project. The extent of risks can often be estimated based on past experience since knowledge about the risks resides with the team. Uncertainties, on the other hand, often fall outside the realm of past experience, which makes them more challenging to estimate. Risks can often be mitigated through additional or special processes. Uncertainties must be managed when they arise
The New Frontier - Achieving Competitive Advantage through Knowledge Management and Innovation in th
Knowledge management (KM) is one of the biggest buzzwords in industry today, second only to globalization. Many users often flaw introduction of this concept for increasing organizational performance due to a poor understanding of what it is, why it is important, why it is necessary, and how it will benefit them. Significant benefits to the value of a business await those who are able to implement knowledge management within their companies in such a way that it becomes a competency with which they are able to differentiate themselves and gain a competitive advantage.
This three part series of reviews discusses how to successfully implement Knowledge Management.
Best Practices In Project Management
A two day course delivered by John de Wardt in Singapore on July 24th and 25th.
This course is now available to any client, it is described in the linked article. It is designed to provide you with the tools to enhance the performance of your projects based on best practices.
Achieving World Class Project Performance
Is there room for improvement in the practices for planning and executing upstream oil and gas projects? Panelists from major oil companies, key suppliers and project management companies stated a resounding "Yes" to this question at the 2002 Offshore Technology Conference. They specifically cited stakeholder alignment, operator / contractor interfaces, definition of the operators role, the operators project organization and risk management as areas requiring significant attention.
A three pronged approach is recommended to consistently deliver best in class performance - Lean Management techniques to achieve stakeholder alignment to a performance objective, Project Management methods to guide the organization through planning / execution and Strategy Implementation to achieve buy in across the whole organization.
Managing Uncertainty In Large, Integrated Projects - it is just not happening!
Capital construction projects have historically been based on very deterministic design parameters. In the oil industry, this required a significant phase of discovery and appraisal to determine the parameters that define the design of large projects. The recent trend of accelerating projects has reduced the time available to determine these parameters and thus significant uncertainty exists as designs are made. Traditional capital design processes have not been adjusted to take account of this change and teams struggle to rationalize their old processes without understanding the impact of these uncertainties. Correctly managing uncertainty will lead to benefits.
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Testimonials
John’s emphasis on rigorous planning has resulted in tangible and measurable results in the area of drilling and completing wells. A true step-change.
We have seen significant improvements in results and have adopted the principles in our planning and operations efforts.
...substantial improvement in product delivery and resultant reductions of inventory. The catalyst for these new processes was the Strategic Planning workshop lead by John de Wardt.
His insight into the oil and gas industry is invaluable, and his knowledge of best practice in manufacturing has added measurable value to several of our investments.
His recent corporate strategy development work resulted in a set of strategic initiatives that are already beginning to deliver value only a few months into their implementation.
John de Wardt provided us with a straight forward, hard driving, no nonsense approach to strategic planning that is still helping us define and achieve new business goals.
Case Studies
Mad Dog GOM Well sets the bench mark.
BP Mad Dog's first Deep Water Development well (4,600 ft water depth) in its pre - SPAR drilling phase achieved a planned TD of 21,330' using Diamond's Ocean Confidence 5th generation semi submersible rig in 21 days per 10,000 ft. The team exceeded the best of best performance in all well segments, except one, in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. This S shaped well drilled through a thick salt section to faulting and a pressure regression below. BP utilized DE WARDT AND COMPANY to take them through the key process steps to achieve the organization alignment, focus on performance, plan enhancement and other attributes they were looking for.
"ELITE" - A success for GF Satellites.
The Lean Drilling program was applied to a 4400 meters development well with an 1100 meters horizontal section, which was planned to include an intelligent completion, in the Norwegian sector of the N Sea. The well was drilled in 25.4 days with an overall drilling performance of 171 meters / day compared to a historic average of 80 meters / day, using a type 2 semi-submersible unit in some 350 meters of water (left plot). The completion activity was performed in 12.9 days compared to a historic completion time of 24 days (right plot). Statoil stated in their magazine "Well Informed" that the result was even better than the Technical Limit Curve for this well. This result realized capital cost savings of US$ 7.5 million and additional value from earlier production of oil.