_ This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper SPE 224078, “Transformation of Well-Intervention Operation Planning Into a Digital Workflow, ” by Ted Brueren, Equinor, and Stefan Dinger, Stimline Digital. The paper has not been peer-reviewed. _ Planning a traditional intervention operation is an inherently time-intensive process requiring extensive communication across multiple disciplines and vendors, compounded by the challenges of manual workflows. Planning engineers often work in silos, relying on local documents stored on personal devices and copying information manually between job programs. The authors write that by replacing outdated, labor-intensive processes with an integrated, cloud-based platform, companies can streamline planning, improve accuracy, and foster better coordination across teams and vendors. Challenges of Traditional Planning Workflows Manual Processes. Well-intervention planning often is hindered by labor-intensive manual workflows that consume significant time and effort. Highly trained and well-educated engineers, whose expertise is critical for strategic decision-making, frequently find themselves burdened with administrative tasks. These include creating and editing job-program information, updating documents with new data manually, and searching across multiple business systems for relevant information such as historical data, operational experiences, well details, and other crucial data. Siloed Operations. Siloed operations pose significant barriers to effective collaboration in well-intervention planning. Disconnected teams, usually a byproduct of large organizations, often work independently, relying on outdated communication methods such as email chains and locally stored documents. Vendor Engagement. Engaging multiple vendors in the planning process without a unified platform presents significant challenges. The lack of centralized tools can lead to fragmented communication, manual coordination efforts, and delays in task assignments. Vendors frequently rely on planning engineers to relay updates and share necessary information, increasing the risk of misaligned expectations and errors. Additionally, the scale of planning organizations can overwhelm vendors, requiring them to allocate additional resources to manage the workload effectively and driving up costs. Data Capture and Analysis. Traditional workflows in well-intervention planning often lack mechanisms for capturing and analyzing data. Without systematic data capture during the planning and execution phases, valuable operational insights are lost. The absence of analytics tools further exacerbates challenges because teams cannot identify patterns in changes made or benchmark performance across similar projects within their own organization or across the industry. Modernizing Well-Intervention Planning With Digital Solutions The shift from manual workflows to a collaborative, cloud-based platform represents a transformative leap in well-intervention planning. The cloud-based platforms create an interconnected system that allows for real-time collaboration that enables automation of workflows while taking advantage of centralized repositories and integrating with relevant business systems. Modern cloud-based collaboration tools centralize all relevant project information and job data on a unified platform. These systems empower planning engineers to create and update work instructions in projects in real time, easily accessible to all stakeholders. Beyond internal collaboration, these tools extend their benefits to external parties such as vendors and third-party contributors by integrating them into the planning process. Vendors gain direct access to essential project and well data, eliminating the need to rely solely on planning engineers for updates. This access enables vendors to contribute critical inputs directly into the digital project.
Chris Carpenter (Fri,) studied this question.