Strategies for Successful Fit to Purpose Front End Engineering Design (FEED) Project Execution – A Triple-Hybrid Approach

Challenges for the fit-to-purpose FEED project are the level of maturity in the conceptual design, stakeholder requests for changes, and level of design accuracy, which impact the quality, cost, and schedule for the detail project's execution. To tackle these challenges, an Indonesian oil and gas company has successfully applied a new approach called the Triple-Hybrid of Agile, Lean, and Digitalization to produce a fit-for-purpose ultra-minimalist design during and after the COVID pandemic era. Triple-Hybrid project management comprises three sources of strategy, namely Agile, Lean and Digitalization. The flexibility in agile management to tackle changes requirement from big swing of project economic value during and after pandemic and to promote collaborative working with all stakeholders including field operation to get the fit to purpose operating and maintenance requirement. Cost effective lean approach to produce fit to purpose ultra-minimalist design by group of in-house expert team to re-engineer the conceptual design and supervise the most economic FEED Consultant. The digitalization of data and communication is necessary to handle the barrier during pandemic era. An Indonesian National Oil and Gas Company has successfully applied the triple hybrid approach to a marginal offshore project located in East Kalimantan. The agile element is the key enabler in accommodating changes by the stakeholders, such as the iteration on the economic value study, derogation process, operating philosophy, and safety. The cost-effective lean approach has created the design transition from a conventional platform to minimalist and then to standardized ultra-minimalist, resulting in a quarter of weight savings. The involvement of in-house multidisciplinary subject matter experts can coach and balance the weaknesses of the FEED consultant and bring the mature level of pre-FEED design to a higher level of accuracy. The technical study, including real market research on the vendor's product design, availability, and cost, is performed thoroughly to bring the accuracy closer to the detailed engineering level. Long-lead items are identified and procured earlier. This helps with the cost and schedule completion for the next stage of engineering details. Digitalization is the answer during COVID-19 to deliver the project and meet all the requirements within the schedule. The details of the triple hybrid project approach will be presented in the body of the paper. The project applies an innovative triple hybrid strategy managed by an experienced international project management team, supported by multidisciplinary subject matter experts and the collaboration of all stakeholders, successfully creating the first standardized ultra-minimalist platform design for marginal fields. The project has also successfully developed local consultants and qualified local products to support Indonesian government policy on local content. The approach is replicable and scalable for offshore fields, both in emerging and developed nations.