Preparing for Digital

I started my journey in Information Management, in Oil & Gas, in 2001. Back then design and maintenance were very much document based with technical data being a secondary thought, “we can get that in a document” seemed to be a common approach. Within a few years’ data centricity began to gain traction and many Information Management professionals began to talk about moving towards a more data centric design and operations. Improving Information Technology allowed us to store vast amounts of data and access complex, 3D models quickly and fluidly. This led to the emergence of integrated engineering hubs, complex applications supporting design, data storage, document storage and interconnected datasets. These were new, powerful solutions but also commonly carried an associated cost that could only be borne by the larger Capital Projects.

Fast forward to today and the Oil & Gas industry is, in many respects, at the start of its Digital revolution. All aspects of projects and operations are facing transformation to a more integrated Digital work place. From IOT, to predictive maintenance all the way round to Digital twins and Digital design templates one thing becomes a stark reality.

This cannot be realised without an abundance of accurate, trustworthy data.

Digital transformations allow us to manage what was considered legacy data in a whole new way. Information that is valuable enough to store in a box offsite, or buried in a server or defunct application, is actually far more valuable than it has ever been. That value is realised through the Digital revolution.

Being a North Sea based consultant we are constantly hearing about new opportunities for production, however deeper reading leads us to know that these are not all necessarily new opportunities, but newly viable opportunities based on advancements in technology and process. This is where previously legacy data around wells, seismic data, geological data etc. becomes hugely value add. We are also at a maturity in our Oil & Gas lifecycle where decommissioning is as big a discussion as commissioning, if not more so. Again legacy data plays a far larger part than at any time in an Asset’s lifecycle other than the design phase. Data that’s not been captured can start to have huge consideration in the decommissioning feasibility studies, plans and execution. Something as simple as how many times a platform has been painted, and the type of paint used, can figure into decommissioning decisions. In ongoing Operations, increasing and improving data can see gains in safety and efficient Operations, as well as ensuring projects are handing across full, quality controlled data sets.

This information can be buried in unstructured environments, hardcopy, hard drives or servers, and commonly has not been physically maintained or has been extracted from 3rd party data sources  without mapping to recipient requirements.

We move from the desire of data centric operation to the requirement for data centric operation. The Digital revolution is accelerating the requirement to identify, cleanse, classify and store data in a robust, controlled environment. The reality facing many organisations is that they are not in a position to leverage Digital to the level they really desire.

Innovative techniques in transformational Data Wrangling services that include image correction, exact and near match duplication removal, data identification and extraction, validation and simple search move all sizes of organisations within reach of truly leveraging the Digital opportunities that lie on the path in front of them.

To read more about our Data Wrangling services you can read Janine Murray’s blogs. Janine leads our Data Wrangling services at Wipro and brings a vast wealth of knowledge in this area and has produced a set of brochures highlighting the key areas of value for Data Wrangling services.

You can also reach out to me directly. I am always open and interested in hearing how others are traversing the Digital pathway, and where there are opportunities to jointly improve that journey.