Technology Management Case Study for Joint Industry Project (JIP

Technology Management Case Study for Joint Industry Project (JIP)

Introduction:

Our consulting firm is an independent entity of technical management consultants specialized in oil and gas industry. We help oil and gas exploration companies and their suppliers to recognize commercialize and systematize new technology. We work jointly with operators to help spot technology opportunities and get them install rapidly and effectively. We facilitate partnership amongst oil corporations worldwide to share latest knowledge about oil and gas technologies through industry network and collaborative data basis. We also facilitate our client companies to help improve trend of demand and exploration of energy resources, raise finance, and speed up time to market their products.

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Proposal summary:

This Joint Industry Project proposal aimed at supporting mutual learning and best performance in technology management within oil companies. Who have a powerful interest in technology and improving the data collection processes, and adding value to the network?

Our client company is a major international concern, has been using a state-of-art technology to enhance oil production from existing reservoirs, enjoying a leading position in this environment of challenging opportunities and threats of declining resources.

The capabilities of this corporation are:

• Best practices and critical success in effective technical management processes within oil exploration sector.
• The capacity of addressing existing and future solutions to technology management core issues.
• Capabilities to use scientific approaches to similar issues from other industry sectors.
• Strong company culture and corporate objectives support strategic management decisions.
• Practical technology solutions to be applied in a timely and cost effective manner
• A sophisticated network of contacts with whom to discuss mutual interests in industry.
• A team of technical experts in technology management department.
• Greater focus within R&D programs guiding company to increase profitability and achievement of corporate objectives.

Background

In an oil exploration industry, where there is an increasingly vital need to find techniques for cost control, better oil recovery and right of entry to previously unreachable oil and gas reservoirs, outstanding technology management can make a significant difference to an organization's success. "A typical technology management system consists of identifying technology requirements, searching best possible solutions, transferring appropriate technologies, managing successive range of technology resources, and encapsulating lessons learnt "(Jahn, Cook,; Graham, 2008).

Research and development activities which are well associated with quality and corporate needs and are successfully used by the resources are common industry goals. Our client organization has made a technical management database which has been successfully operated by the company over a considerable p of time. It is a major international oil company, which has been putting together their own internal database on an existing technology used in the oil ; gas sector. This technology is used to enhance the production of oil from existing reservoir and therefore has great advantages in this climate of declining oil reservoirs.
The aim of the data collection is to enable best configuration of the technology for each type of operating environment and reservoirs, and to graphically present these results and make them available to designers. This oil concern realized that such a project would gain tremendous added value by getting other international oil companies to contribute their own data sets in order to build up an industry- wide database, to which all contributors would have access.

Strategy of project Execution:

The main objective of this project is to initiate, promote and manage a joint industry project (JIP) to collect data in a uniform fashion and then configure a database, carry out preliminary analysis with the participating oil companies, and make this database available to all participants.

The important elements of this JIP include:

• research and evaluate exploration data
• identify technology needs
• develop technology plan
• facilitate field trials and deployment
• share knowledge and lessons learnt
• refine technology program

Our client aims to provide an opportunity where participating companies can share, in an environment of conviction and discretion, the different technical management processes they each use. This will guide to mutual learning, the classification of serious success issues and the development of solutions to common problems.

Objective:

The objective of the JIP is to identify, review and authorize appropriate technical data base which could form a general basis for agreeable processes and to be used by the industry to obtain a common design strategy. "This involve systematize an widespread data review and validation to ensure high data value, distribution of data in a protected network (e.g. SOIL) and imagine data using high-tech graphical user interface (GUI) technology to make sure full worth is brought to planners and decision makers" (Jahn, Cook,; Graham, 2008).

JIP Methodology and Operation:

Membership of this JIP network is will be open to all oil exploration and research companies, subject to approval of the representatives' board. All companies, whatever their size, can equally contribute to its success and effectiveness, Meetings plan randomly and each meeting is themed and targeted towards particular steps of implementation and testing of database concepts or related issues. These issues are diverse and can be address by any or all members.

• Optimizing the start and implementation of technology

• Identifying specific technical needs

• Managing radical new technology

• Capturing information about existing and emerging technologies

Each meeting will start with one or two representatives giving a detailed presentation describing how their company addresses the particular process, their methodology in understanding of the critical factors, their own perceived strengths and weaknesses, the particular problems they have encountered and ideas/ best practice suggestions for the future...

A dedicated JIP website to be developed for the mounting of deliverables,

To be incorporated a means of downloadable information on this project.

This interactive portal will host all the relevant links to be utilized by industry in future. In addition, our client will work in close co-operation with other corporations in promoting technology development and implementation in the upstream oil and gas industry.

Benefits of participating in this JIP:

Member organizations will enjoy a number of benefits; range from the technical information to the financial impact of bringing this knew technology to marketplace accessibility. Specifically the benefits have been summarized below.

·         Reduction in risk in using this database for offshore exploration.

·         Reduction of research and development costs.

·         Industry accord though teamwork of operators, service provider and suppliers.

·         Access to technology developers, researchers, government organizations, and NGO's.

·         First hand knowledge of best technology to enhance oil production.

·         Detailed testing of procedures from leading oil exploration companies.

In addition to the benefits described, new joining corporations will be entitled to:

·         Share the data  to understand the evolutionary process that the JIP will be gone through

·          Details of presentations made to the JIP by members, reporting the progress of the various phases of the project.

·         View the summary report assessing the operating environment and reservoirs.

·         Opportunity to utilize new technology for installation of equipments in new sites.

·         Industry consent through partnership of member companies.

Factors effecting implementation of JIP:

Preliminary work this joint industry project (JIP) suggests that it may be possible to reduce the success risk. The best possible start options may also depend on the internal and external factors. Experiments at our client site proved the efficiency of this technology, but in order to implement it to whole industry additional research is needed. Studies need to be conducted for geographical locations, companies’ infrastructure, and technical capabilities of data base operators. Earlier investigations have shown JIP problems and its management is ten times more important than any other concern in project development. A better consideration of the issues leading to long term solutions is needed. Identification of efficient operational procedures will be a great help in cutting capital and operating expenses. The test program of JIP systems should guide to improve project designs and associated operating strategies.  Finally, analysis of the impact of the member location could be studied.

Analysis of some key components in JIP implementation is given below:

State of the art market intelligence system is a necessity to review market needs, analysis of competitors and demand of this system. This tool lead to market fore sighting, technology valuation, and project budgeting.
Strategic management process will perform the analysis of technology need, development of corporate and business strategies, development of business plans, and supply chain development.
Commercialization of technology involves effective procedure of member organizations, fund raising activities, development of project proposals and their presentations, initiation of JIP modules, and facilitation of management activities.
Establishment of information – distribution networks to initiate JIP procedures, web-based interactive processing systems, technical training and development through workshops and seminars, and inclusion of database performance measures.
Organizations selection procedure:

The project will be organized by our client company as a Joint Industry Project where oil companies are invited to participate. Major market players will be contacted and when they indicate positive interest, membership process will start. A managing board will be established with members' administration as the secretariat. One of the oil companies will be the leading party and have the chairman of the board.

The companies will be contacted through telephone, e-mail, and personal visits. After initial briefings, these firms' representatives will be invited in introductory seminars and workshops conducted at the premises of our client's branches. For off-shore companies, online seminars and video conferences will also be the part of marketing plan. An industry need analysis will help in customizing the internal database to the requirements of the industry, for this purpose focus group discussions, and detailed surveys will also be conducted.

Project description:

The project will be restricted to data related for oil & gas exploration and development in oil enrich areas. The project will focus on data needed by the industry to - establish design criteria for a given location and to perform oil production enhancing assessment in selected areas. In addition, geological drilling data which is open to the public will be included.

The project will be performed in three stages.

Stage 1: Pre-project

The main task in this stage is to identify and review relevant data and data basis.

Companies and research institutes which can gather, accumulate and sustain the relevant data will be identified. To search possible systems and software houses to provide 3D Web Tool to display the collected data. Principles for sharing data and accessibility will be designed and possible data gaps will be identified with suggestions for ending these flaws.

The results of this stage will be the scope of work and propose documents for stage 2, and a demonstration of the planned data arrangement and visualization.

Stage 2: Project initialization

The second phase will include the initiation of members' selection, their registration, and finalization of JIP agreements. This stage also includes design of the overall data architecture and 3 D web tool, full execution of data base, and data entry by research institutions and companies possessing data. The assortment and approval of data to be entered will be evaluated and decided by technical experts, including oil company council members.

Stage 3: Project implementation and testing

Data base collaboration will be fully implemented and internally extended. The issues coming forth in stage 2 are to be solved and tested. The managing board will decide on an extension of the scope of the project in order to realize the full potential of international offshore oil exploration collaboration.

Data base Handling:
With the initiation of JIP, with a first stage targeted on generating a standard for the project, and building a purposeful database system. The database system had to permit the efficient storage and recovery of all pertinent information collected through the project. It also has to have a variety of integral components to allow user to inquire and carry out analysis with any preferred subsets of the accounts.

Subsequent stages will concentrate on increasing the amount of data in the system, enhancing the overall performance of the dataset, increasing the capabilities available on the Website and doing analysis to better recognize key aspects affecting quality and operations.

Our client role in the JIP is mainly of a facilitator, an independent entity to work with the participants to make certain that the knowledge sharing takes place successfully. They will maintain the project Web Site, process the participants’ data to ensure steadiness, will develop new investigation tools, and will conduct a diversity of analyses on behalf of the members.

This system will work in many phases; information in the members’ databases will first enter into a restricted area of the system. This data will then transfer to dispensation for quality control. Records that meet up the recognized quality parameters will then subject to an accessible area of the system, and become available to all JIP Participants for analysis.

 The data base components functional steps can be interpreted as:

• Data processing: data from existing databases comprise of field, well and equipment, production or operational, and failure data of participating member organizations.
• Data qualification: Analysis of completeness, consistency, and accuracy of submitted data.
• Data Analysis: Designing of charts and tables, failure distributions, data comparisons, market trends, and testing of functions reliability.
  Project Costing:

Membership of the data base network will be open to all oil and gas exploration companies who share an interest in

Technological development. The level of contribution to be used will reflect the size of the corporations involved and their contribution to the JIP as a whole. This costing schedule will be constant for first 3 years of project.

Particulars
Tentative Costs ( U.S dollars)
Initial joining fee
$3,000 - $ 5,000
Annual membership fee
$ 5,000 - $ 8,000
Projects consultation and designing
Varies with size and technology use

Members will use full access to a members-only functional website which includes interactive data bases, market research reports, presentation slides, a membership directory as well as toolkits and information packs.

JIP implementation schedule:

After considering the complexities of operations, and the capabilities of our client marketing and management, the tentative schedule of JIP implementation procedure is expecting to be comprises of approximately one financial year, the break up for different stages is as follows:

Event
Time required
Project initiation
2 months
Selection of Interested Organizations
3 months
Finalization of participants
2 months
Briefings and formation of managing Board
1 month
Funding –payment collections
2 weeks
Database sharing and installation at member sites
1 month
Database testing and trouble shooting
1 month
Project implementation and feedback
1 month

Project challenges and opportunities:

In oil industry, a remarkable amount of data collecting research projects have been undertaken in the past.  These data resource are available in multiple forms, but their access is restricted in some public and private concerns. Large amount of this data has been collected by public funding. "This JIP will enable relevant data available to the industry in an easily reachable ways, less duplication of work, and establishes a common ground leading to cost savings in oil industry" (Jahn, Cook,; Graham, 2008).

A part from these opportunities, some critical challenges will hinder the progress of this effective collaboration, some of these critical factors are:

The ways to optimize supplier collaborations for this data base. The nature, type and size of the data supplier are very important. The core issue is initiation, and maintenance of productive relationships with these member organizations. The project management team has to be competent enough to trouble shoot the arising issues in the process of JIP implementation.
The promotion and management of this new technology also requires some key technical skills of project team. Important issues to be addressed by the company will be level of technology, company culture and system efficiency.
Speed and innovation of supply chain will create new competitors in future, similar JIP from competitive firms and other institutions can be a significant threat for our client.

Conclusion:

The proposed project aims to improve the technological sharing procedures under restricted conditions, potentially allowing oil companies to explore new alternatives and high productivity. The risk factor of this JIP can be minimized by effective initiation and management of data base procedures. The outcome of the project is a better understanding by all participating corporations of the occurrence of need and application of this technology in oil and gas exploration. This knowledge would allow better risk estimation and designs for future technology management systems.

References

1. Jahn, F.  Cook, M. ; Graham, M. (2008).  Hydrocarbon Exploration and Production (2nd ed.) (Amsterdam):  Elsevier

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