?The current operating environment brings with it many challenges. The challenge of effective risk management and the prospect of tighter regulation have forced many operators and service companies to review procedure and practice, but it is the increase in the cost of doing business that many companies identify as one of the most influential factors in the current operating climate.

Combining this with the growing demand for oil and gas creates pressures throughout the supply chain, and only the companies that manage this shift effectively will gain in safety and efficiency.

Improving efficiency

Operational efficiency must be high on any company’s agenda, and a major contributing factor can be found in the management of frontline work execution practices. While many focus on planning and production efficacy – from maintenance and shutdowns to maximizing throughput and plant availability – work execution traditionally is left to the plant units to organize, execute, and deliver, often from outdated and cumbersome paper processes.

Frontline operations have changed very little in the past 40 years, with many systems still relying on manual forms in triplicate. The result is that the efficiency of workers on the front line typically is below 50%, which means workers achieve less than half of the work that is planned.

Frontline work execution must be exposed to the same levels of scrutiny and rigor as production and planning. (Images courtesy of Petrotechnics Ltd.)

Frontline work execution must be exposed to the same levels of scrutiny and rigor as production and planning. (Images courtesy of Petrotechnics Ltd.)

It is evident that frontline work execution must be exposed to the same levels of scrutiny and rigor as production and planning. Petrotechnics Ltd. believes this shortfall in operational efficiency can be overcome. Both safety and efficiency benefits can be delivered by simplifying, standardizing, and systemizing planning and by controlling hazardous work in operation units.

The company’s Sentinel PRO system addresses this issue by providing a software tool while simultaneously addressing process integration and frontline best practice – crucial elements for both performance improvement and safety regulation. This integrated safe system of work is able to match stakeholder needs to behaviors and actions, managing frontline operations from policy through to practice. Not only does it bring together the processes and practices included in the planning and production phases, it also encourages a single common standard across an entire plant, or throughout the whole organization. The introduction of global standards encourages knowledge sharing and common practices that ultimately reduce overall costs.

It is important to recognize that the successful blend of process integration, human behavior, local regulation, and operational scale and complexity are the keys to technology succeeding.

By combining effective, safe work control practices with operations through Sentinel PRO, companies can realize tangible benefits with a reduction in man-hours, a structured approach, and increased operational protection. All of this ultimately leads to a reduction in cost.

The system recognizes and overcomes challenges in the unstructured and dynamic nature of managing operations, maintenance, and associated activity through a unified business process that integrates permit to work, risk assessment, and isolation management. This is delivered to the user in an intuitive, graphical, real-time software tool that has the ability to capture lessons learned and provides a framework for governance, audit, and assurance.

Increased efficiency is matched with accelerated maintenance and remedial work, resulting in better plan attainment and a corresponding improvement in plant integrity. Sentinel PRO fundamentally shifts the approach to planning and integrating all aspects of frontline work to give a clear overview, appropriate safe work control, and assurance of intervention activities.

Risk assessment lies at the core, whether it is individual or team based. For example, shutdowns can be planned many months in advance with the flexibility to manage the process either from the installation or from onshore.

The increase in efficiency the technology provides is complemented by the level of control that is attained throughout the risk assessment process as its transparent nature means all users can view risk assessment, permit to work, isolations, audit trails, and lessons learned within a fully integrated and regulated system.

How work gets done

The proficiency of Sentinel PRO was demonstrated in a recent project with a major North American operator across 10 sites in the US and Canada. Petrotechnics was asked to address a number of issues, including improving work efficiency through less rework, greater reuse, and less duplication and improving safety performance with increased permit quality, audit capabilities, and providing the ability to capture learning with interlocking safe work permitting and lock-out/tag-out (LOTO). The operator required a single integrated business process approach across all of the sites with work categorization and specific task practices to increase process assurance and compliance.

As an initial step, Petrotechnics reviewed the current work processes to identify the scope and impact areas where Sentinel PRO could add value. This highlighted a large number of conventional paper processes as well as a move in some cases to simple electronic systems, such as LOTO. It was clear that these all were largely disparate. Consultation with the sites and central teams allowed Petrotechnics to identify where a single process integrating all aspects of work would drastically increase efficiency, providing substantial cost savings.

In line with the implementation of the Sentinel PRO system, Petrotechnics also had to manage the internal change process, which required all 700 users to be licensed and trained. The initial rollout process took less than a year.

The tangible implementation benefits included better workplace management and control, improving productivity, streamlining process, and assuring all work hazards can be assessed to the appropriate level. Process efficiency was achieved through more effective communication, improved maintenance planning, and greater schedule compliance. Plant availability was improved by tasking supervisors and technicians more appropriately and through complete standardization of business processes. The result was improved safety performance and activity planning combined with harmonization across all 10 sites.

Since the implementation of this approach, a recent turnaround was completed in only 21 days (40,000 man-hours) with zero incidents. More broadly, the introduction of Sentinel PRO has reduced the indirect cost of project and maintenance activity by approximately 20%.

With six of the top 10 international oil and gas companies using this system, it is clear that operators see the value of using technology to transform the safety and efficiency of frontline work. The drive to reduce cost and increase production in a safe and sustainable way is a pressure that is here to stay.