How an Adaptable Digital Foundation Helps Oil and Gas Progress Performance and Transformation Goals

Oil and Gas IQ recently hosted a 2-part webinar series focused on unlocking transformational value with data-driven operations. We had the opportunity to share our thoughts in the webinar. In part 1, we highlighted the data and transformation in Oil & Gas; below we share a summary of part 2.

A key objective of this session was to share specific approaches showing how they could better leverage data and digital technologies to achieve performance goals of today and transformational goals of tomorrow. While the approaches an organization could undertake to achieve above goals may be quite diverse, we believe at a high level they likely share commonalities that fit under the following three key stages:

1. Setting up a robust yet adaptable digital foundation
2. Leveraging technologies whose performance has been proven over decades
3. Expanding technology ecosystem with promising technologies to maximize ROI

Let’s dive deeper into each of these three stages.

Leveraging data at enterprise level and scale could be quite challenging due to different types of data, processes, tools, and systems which need to come together to make the data actionable. During our conversations with customers, we have found that many organizations face issues while integrating different types of data or they don’t have business rules automated, and hence must manage their data manually. They sometimes lack a flexible and scalable analytics environment to test and run their analytics to achieve desired results, or they are using analytics solutions but can’t view all their data in a cohesive and holistic way.

In addition, there may be cases where they’ve installed ‘point solutions’ whose capabilities are limited to a specific function or use cases and not integrated with other datasets. All these challenges prevent organizations from realizing full potential of their data and digital investments and result in poor business outcomes including, increased IT and Operations and Maintenance (O&M) costs, and lower margins.

The Oil and Gas industry can turn data challenges into opportunities by setting up an adaptable yet robust digital foundation. This foundation enables you to efficiently leverage different types of data. Be it the most common data coming directly off assets, IT or OT systems, or the relatively newer types of data around emissions or visuals.

We help our customers build this adaptable digital foundation with our Essentials platform, an end-to-end industrial IoT (IIoT) platform for data and event management. Essentials offers all the key capabilities needed to consolidate, integrate, analyze, visualize, and act on data and insights.

We understand cybersecurity is a key prerequisite of any robust digital solution and hence we do everything to ensure your data remains secure in the cloud. Per our "secure-by-design" approach, security is ensured at every stage from design to delivery and beyond. We also have robust security frameworks and governance mechanisms, including security certifications and external audits in place to ensure continuous and ongoing security.

Now, with an adaptable digital foundation in place, you can turn data challenges into opportunities with proven solutions. One such solution, is our portfolio of Asset Performance Management (APM) applications that leverage the Essentials platform for IT/OT connectivity and integration; data management and processing; and visualization, analysis, and event management. APM Strategy, APM Health, Reliability and Performance Intelligence, Mechanical Integrity, and Safety are composable applications that can be used on their own or as part of an integrated, enterprise solution to help organizations reduce risk, eliminate unplanned downtime, and optimize maintenance.

With such a broad and comprehensive solution, where do you start? Well, there is no one way to start the APM journey but for many of our O&G customers, who are focused on reducing risk and managing contained and compliant facilities, they start with APM Integrity to enable asset inspection and monitoring programs for their fixed assets. To do so, it is matter of using a standard connector from Essentials to integrate EAM data for work order and history data that then can bi-directionally communicate with Asset Performance Management. For others, they may see more of an immediate need to implement predictive analytics on their most critical rotating assets to prevent failures that can lead to extended downtimes and have a significant impact on production. To do so, it is matter of using a standard connector from Essentials to integrate operational data that can then be used with a library of out-of-the-box analytics, or as we call them “blueprints,” to predict failure modes for over 350 different asset types.

From here, organizations can accelerate value by expanding the data sets and applications used via integrated workflows, such as those focused on failure elimination or equipment and system health. With equipment and system health workflows, pre-configured data templates and downloadable content allows users to systematically assess and prioritize health of assets based on criticality and conditioned-based monitoring to maximize the impact of O&M actions using APM Strategy, Health, Reliability & Performance applications. Even with available data, without a systematic and consistent method of assessing asset health and criticality, it can be difficult to almost impossible to maximize the impact of your limited O&M resources.

Furthermore, as an innovation-driven and customer-centric organization, we keep working on innovative technologies that solve our customers pain points and maximize returns on their investments. The technology we highlighted for this session was focused on transforming the manual inspection process.

In the current manual inspection process, operators or inspectors have to go around the industrial facilities and perform visual or other inspections. This process is not only time and effort intensive, it is also risky at times e.g., in cases when inspections require getting close to heated, electrically charged equipment or climbing at heights. Further, we believe the following industry trends are making manual inspections even tougher and unsustainable:

• The rising use of renewable resources is resulting in industrial assets getting spread over a much larger area than before
• A consistent and growing need for energy firms to respond faster and quickly adapt to the variable supply-demand curves and other dynamics

To address the growing challenges associated with a manual inspection process, we are developing a solution based on artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) that turns images into data, reducing the need for people at site to collect and interpret data. The solution can be trained to automatically identify certain assets like pressure gauges and pull readings from them. In certain cases, like in case of corrosion, it can not only identify the occurrence of corrosion but can also identify its severity.

As an add-on to the Essentials platform, the solution can seamlessly integrate with APM. Additionally, it consolidates all the available data and outputs in one location for easy post reference and analysis. The solution is already displaying very promising results in pilots we’re running with some of our customers for multiple use cases - from gauge reading, to thermal profiling and panel monitoring. For one of our customers, the solution was able to reduce the time involved in completing the entire the inspection workflow, from data collection to initiating action, from two weeks to just 30 minutes.

Now that we have shared some examples of how Oil and Gas organizations can leverage data and digital technologies to achieve performance goals of today and transformational goals of tomorrow, it is important to ground the value in outcomes that have been achieved.

To help us quantify value realization from such initiatives, we commissioned Forrester, a third-party research & advisory firm, to interview existing customers regarding the outcomes that they've been able to derive from Asset Performance Management, as a benchmarking initiative. Forrester compiled their findings in a report called the Total Economic Impact (TEI) analysis of GE APM for Oil & Gas. The report comprises detailed findings including the key IT and business benefits, costs and risks vs. rewards witnessed post using a GE Asset Performance Management solution. We found that over a five-year period, our Oil & Gas customers have seen about 300% ROI or $25 million in net present value, which is very substantial.

Besides an independent analysis, we routinely ask our customers how our software is helping them turn their data challenges into opportunities. You can hear directly from oil and gas customers on how they are using solutions, such as Asset Performance Management, to solve their toughest challenges.

Turning data challenges into opportunities is not easy but quite doable with a structured approach and a strategic partner like GE Vernova. Whether you need help with setting up an adaptable digital foundation; leveraging proven Asset Performance Management technologies or maximizing returns with newer promising technologies, we’ve got the right solution set for you. Accelerate your data and digital transformation journey with us today.