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Integrated Planning One road to reach Integrated Operations

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Integrated Operations
Integrated Planning
One road to reach Integrated Operations
Presented at SPE Bergen - 1 Day Seminar, April 23rd 2008
http://bergen.spe.no/aktiviteten.cfm?cevid=48260
Harald Sleire
Maintenance Management Department
MARINTEK
Norwegian Marine Technology Research Institute
N7450 Trondheim, Norway
Harald.Sleire@marintek.sintef.no
Abstract
Agile and resilient organisations can overcome the effect of
the stochastic nature of offshore operations planning. We
argue through this article that this can be achieved through a
formal planning process creating an Integrated Plan. But the
main challenge is the ability to manage the operations plan
in the execution phase where deviation will occur. The
required agility and resilience is achieved by using a
Operations Support Centre for collaboration, data
enhancement and decision making. For the organisation to
exploit the full potential of the OSC a more network centric
organisation have to be developed as part of an
organisational learning approach. There has to be a balance
between the network centricity (edge empowerment) and the
hierarchical chain of command for this to be flexible and
responsive enough to handle the diversity of plan-deviation.
Keywords
Operations Planning
Integrated Operations
Oil and Gas Operations
1. Introduction
Integrated Operations have become the offshore buzz of the
21st century and the number of meanings associated with the
term gives room for several interpretations. The common
understanding is that IO will lead to a change in the work
processes in oil and gas exploitation world wide. This
change is mainly caused by the use of computer technology
that makes it possible to transfer huge amounts of
information across enormous distances in real time.
The Norwegian Oil Industry Association (OLF, 2006)
describes the use of information technology, change of work
processes and organizational change (moving of functions)
as key elements in integrated operations. The Norwegian
government define IO as the use of information technology
to achieve better decisions, remote operations of equipment
-1-
Integrated Planning
Aud-Marit Wahl
Maintenance Management Department
MARINTEK
Norwegian Marine Technology Research Institute
N7450 Trondheim, Norway
AudMarit.Wahl@marintek.sintef.no
and processes and to move functions as well as people
onshore (Stortingsmelding 38, 2003-2004). The benefit of
IO is described by the Norwegian petroleum directorate as
increased production, lower operating costs, longer field
lifetimes and improved exploitation of the oil and gas
resources on the Norwegian shelf.1 OLF (2006) has
estimated the value increase on the Norwegian continental
shelf due to integrated operations to at least 250 billions
NKR in 2015. The main reason for this is increased
production resulting from improved decision making.2 OLF
(2006) also points to how IO influences health, safety and
environmental (HSE) issues in the industry.
Stortingsmelding nr. 12 (2005-2006) underlines that the
technological challenges are not the main issue within IO
any more. Now the focus is on HSE challenges related to
safety, new work processes and integration of information.
The goal is to operate even more safely and efficiently by
practising integrated operations. The ambition is to make the
work processes faster, safer and better and create enhanced
value and safer operations through better dialogue across
specialist disciplines and closer cooperation between
employees on land and offshore.
In military operations the IO concept is described as
Network Centric Warfare, Alberts & Hays (2003). The
objective of NCW is the utilisation of information
management supremacy to empower your network
(organisation) for fast and reliable decision making under
uncertainty and changing scenery.
We define IO as; improved decision making through new
ways of working utilising real time information to
collaborate across social, professional, organisational and
geographical boundaries. This interpretations of IO is
limited to Organisational Development either being made
possible through new technology (utilising real time
information) or technological development opening for new
1
http://www.npd.no/English/Emner/E-drift/introduksjon.htm
2
http://www.olf.no/io/aktuelt/?32756.pdf
Rev.3 - 2008-04-23
Integrated Operations
ways of working. IO is in it self not an objective but a
method to achieve other objectives; like better efficiency,
improved safety or other organisational goals.
But Integrated Operations can also be interpreted as an
ultimate goal, a wish to create an operation that is truly
integrated, that is where all parts of the operation is aware of
the dependencies and constraints in the operations and
where a collaborative spirit aims at achieving the operational
optimum, where no sub optimisation on lower level take
place. To reach such an operational state several issues are
mandatory; management dedication, cultural changes
rewarding integration and collaboration, contracts
facilitating this (where more than one company is involved),
measurements (KPI) on IO level rather on discipline level
and the willingness to establish and change the business
processes enabling this form of Integrated Operation.
This article is the first in a series of articles establishing a
path towards an Integrated Operation where we use IO as a
method (as defined first) and seek to achieve the objective of
a truly Integrated Operation. We will in this series of articles
narrow the approach to operations planning and plan
execution as one necessary mean to achieve Integrated
Operations and maintain primary focus on logistic support
as the main customer of the Integrated Plan.
Offshore Operations Planning is a multi discipline activity
where domain knowledge is valued higher than the planning
skill, in particularly the integrated planning skills. The
planning is characterised by high degree of uncertainty in
the ability to complete tasks as planned, due to unpredictable
weather and unexpected underground issues causing
interrupts in drilling, well break downs etc.
The driving force to establish an integrated planning process
is the need to optimise the utilisation of the common
resources the operations depend on, mainly logistic support
and the specialised maintenance resources. This challenge is
similar to what is found in military combat operations and in
the operations of space segments like the International Space
Station. They all depend on logistic support limited by
weather, terrain and unplanned changes in operational
activities. This uncertainty indicates that the logistic
operator faces challenges during service provisioning even if
a very tight demand chain management is established.
Wheelock (1997) claims that if logistics is left unattended,
logistics will in the end command the operations due to the
constraints it represents. The obvious way to overcome such
a problem would be to build in redundancy by using
advanced stores, a high degree of slack in plans and a
general overcapacity in the supply chain. This is normally
not feasible due to cost constraints.
We argue that due to the stochastic nature of the operations
and the limited availability of the logistic support an optimal
integrated plan does not exists. To meet these challenges it
is necessary to create a dynamic organisation with a strong
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Integrated Planning
deviation handling capability. This fall along the lines of
NCW as defined by E.A. Smith Jr. who describes the IO (or
NCW) as an ongoing process where one continuously has to
challenge the way of doing operations, taking into account
the potential new technology represents.
2. The Integrated Nature of the Offshore Operation
Even when an oil field is in its production phase there is a
need for drilling of new wells, restore damaged wells or
performing other kinds of well service jobs in order to
maintain the production capability of the field. The drilling
plans are developed in collaboration with the geologists and
geophysicists. Drilling represents a major activity on a field
and may impede production, modification or maintenance
work on an installation. A drilling operation is also a large
logistic challenge due to the logistic volumes it drives and
the unpredictability of the drilling operations it self.
The production Optimisation can be viewed as detached
from the physical operation since it involves the analysis of
reservoir performance and predictions as well as plans for
future management of the reservoir. But the consequences of
the analysis are directly influencing the production and as
such the logistic need of the production process. Figure 1
indicates this is a tightly coupled system where the varying
demand of the disciplines is accommodated by the Logistic
Support Service in order for the wheels to keep moving.
Figure 1 Asbjørnslett (2005)
In addition to these directly value generating activities there
is a large Maintenance and Modification activity on an
offshore installation. The sole aim of this is to keep the
facility in a safe and efficient production mode for the
duration of the oil field. The need for modifications arises
from new technology advancements, changed operational
requirements or new legislation. Generally modifications
are well planned and executed in large scale campaigns
where the time is crucial in order to minimise the impact on
the production. Maintenance is a continuous activity taking
place in parallel with normal operation. Therefore the
planning of maintenance tasks must be coordinated closely
with the operations. Maintenance is a small customer of the
Logistic Support Service whereas the MOD’s can be
anything from small to large dependent of the modifications
to be performed.
3. The need for an Integrated Plan
Using the perspective presented by Charles Perrow (1999)
the offshore operation can be regarded as a tightly coupled
system. The production system requires a high degree of
cooperation, coordination and co-planning among and
Rev.3 - 2008-04-23
Integrated Operations
between different disciplines. It is a high degree of
dependability between logistic support and tasks like drilling
and well service, production, maintenance and modifications
as pictured in figure 1. Taking away or even diminish one
part of the system will have consequences for other parts of
the operation. This may lead to what Perrow (1999)
describes as incidents. Lack of supplies or personnel to do
the work may disrupt or even stop the production of oil or
gas. The interactions between the different components of
the production system are in addition rather complex
because of the stochastic nature of the operation.
Interruptions in drilling, underground surprises and
unpredictable weather as well as limited resources, leads to
unfamiliar, unplanned or unexpected sequences of events
that may be difficult to comprehend for the operators of the
system.
Since the number of constraints during planning is large and
some constraints are nested and barely comprehensible it is
very hard to maintain a proper overview of the operations in
order to make good local plans. This entangled planning
scenario calls for an integrated process rather than
segregated local planning. The main bulk of tasks can be
handled locally by the discipline planning to keep the
integrated plans on a level where they add value to the
overall operations.
Resource levelling is one aspect of planning that need
integration if the resources are shared between several
disciplines. This is the case with the supply chain, the
offshore facility and specialised resources (like scaffolding
etc.). Since the demand for these common resources arise
from different disciplines it is unlikely that the resource
managers themselves can level the resources since they do
not have insight in the discipline priorities and the
background for the demand. Therefore an integrated or
collaborative approach needs to be pursued also for this
aspect of planning.
Task identification is done in a highly distributed manner.
Within the disciplines the task information is collected and
maintained. General maintenance task are reported centrally
and the task are then pulled up when producing the
operations and maintenance plans. One of the short comings
of a distributed system for capturing tasks is that
information about the context in which the task was
nominated often gets lost. This impedes the process of
prioritising and selecting tasks. . This point in the direction
of collaboration in order to resolve what is the optimum list
of tasks for the next planning period.
Task prioritisation becomes complex when tasks are
nominated from different disciplines and tasks are not
directly comparable, it’s like comparing apples and pears.
So the development of more comprehensive prioritisation
mechanism seams unavoidable. The question is if it is
possible to make the priorities rule based and if so, is it
possible to define common parameters where a rule based
system will work. Only dealing with cost of implementation
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Integrated Planning
is not good enough. The use of NPV (Net Present Value) for
the “investment” can be used to compare tasks. This opens
the Pandora’s Box of how do you calculate the effect of not
performing a particular task so we regard is not particularly
feasible. The most probable way of solving this is through
collaboration and integrated prioritisation of task influencing
more than one discipline.
It would be beneficial to introduce a Risking method for task
to be able to “foresee” potential problems in task execution.
This involves determining the probability for the task to be
performed as planned. This thought is based on an
assumption that 80% of all tasks are business as usual and
15% represents “known” rework or problems (standard
operating procedures), whereas 5% represents new
challenges that have no immediate solution. The 20% of task
creating disturbances may take up to 80% of the operations
support problem solving capability (the numbers used are
only examples). In this scenario the risking of tasks done by
the disciplines will give an early indication to the operations
planners and support functions where to focus the effort to
build the plan more robust, and also to scale resources in
order to be able to respond to potential changes in the plan.
As the interpretation of risk to some extent is subjective and
context dependent, the evaluation of risk is ideally
performed in collaboration in order to achieve and share a
common interpretation of the situation.
4. Demand management
In logistic planning the vital information is the knowledge
about the demand, the variation and the probability
distribution of the demand. Only with this knowledge is it
possible to optimise the logistic supply chain. Thus it seems
as a contradiction of terms to try to establish a tight demand
management regime for offshore operations because of the
stochastic elements. We argue that may be as much as 80%
of the deviations are “known” deviations, not in the sense
that they where predictable, but in the sense that they have
been observed earlier and as such have a “known” solution.
Therefore it is vital to elaborate the planning process, not
only to deal with task planning and resource constraint
levelling, but to include the demand capture and levelling
dimension as well. In order to be able to manage the supply
chain as one of the planning constraints it is necessary to
have oversight over the demands.
Several approaches to managing demands exists;
standardisation of material packages, real time usage
monitoring (online stock) and utilisation of production plans
as demand indicators. All these methods are suitable for
production plans with serial production and predictability in
demand. In the offshore operations an alternative approach
has to be pursued.
We propose to overcome imperfections in the operation with
organisational means. And the concept of information
sharing, collaboration and the joint development of demand
profiles between stakeholders and logistic support seem as
Rev.3 - 2008-04-23
Integrated Operations
one way to go. This correlates with the approach to plan
deviation management, as discussed later in the article.
5. Integrated Planning Process
There are several aspects of the offshore operations that
require coordination of planning activities. One of the major
organisational challenges in establishing an integrated
planning process is the multi discipline setting where
disciplines are operated almost as separate business units.
This organisational structure means that there is no
hierarchical organisational entity on a higher level that will
host the integrated planning function. The Integrated
Planning function both supports and makes operational
decisions on behalf of other disciplines. This concept needs
maturing and management support to evolve to an operative
tool.
In order for Integrated Planning to work its mandate have to
be established and the disciplines have to accept the added
value planning gives to their own operation. Even if the
planning process belongs to the disciplines there also needs
to be staff dedicated as planners, maintaining the plan and
coaching the process.
As outlined in the figure below the Integrated Planning
Process (IPL) is based on planning input from the
disciplines. This input should be standardised in order to be
able to handle the information equally. In addition a task
database will be used to capture all activity requests. This is
typically done through ERP solutions like SAP.
Figure 2 Integrated Planning Process
The IPL process contains activities like scheduling against
known constraints, resource levelling, resource conflict
resolution, plan acceptance and plan dissemination. The
dissemination of the plan is important as the operational
plans of the disciplines have to be updated to reflect the
agreement made in the IPL.
In parallel with the IPL a demand mapping and resolution
process will run between the disciplines and Logistic
Support. To expose all demands related to the activity plans,
Logistic Support should participate in the IPL process to
answer to the feasibility of different operational proposals.
-4-
Integrated Planning
In this way the logistics will be managed correctly as a
constraint in the IPL process.
After the Integrated Plan is made it has to be put in to action.
We propose that an Operations Support Centre (OSC) is
developed to manage the Integrated Plan. The OSC may be
described as a hub where complex decisions are made based
on the interpretation of vast amount of information. Both
technological and organizational characteristics distinguish
it from more traditional work settings. Extended use of
computer technology, for instance messaging, video and net
meetings are often used as tools in the work processes. It
will be based on the same characteristics Suchman (1997)
uses to describe a centre of coordination:
• A strict division of labour in which different
personnel have differing responsibilities and
obligations
• Personal are co-located in the ‘same’ physical
domain, but continually interact with others
outside that domain
• Real time and asynchronously coordination with
the activities of others
• The information needed to accomplish individual
tasks is dispersed amongst equipment and
personnel within (and outside) the domain
• Different tools and technologies are available to
facilitate the co-ordination of tasks.
The main objective of the OSC is to maintain the plan up to
date and to resolve conflicts and changes to the agreed plan.
The OSC will function as a workplace for planners,
maintenance managers, logistics-, resource- and material-
planners as well as being a part of a larger network of
activities in the organisation. Suchman (1996) describes how
the actors in a control room come to awareness of the
problems at hand from their particular organizational and
physical place, how they develop a shared orientation to the
situation and establish places for their joint work. She points
to how the location of the room, organizational, spatial and
temporal, sets up the conditions within which the work gets
done.
The OSC have to establish it self as a value adding entity
during handling of plan deviations, therefore building the
trust and reliable performance reputation is instrumental for
the OSC ability to operate. It is an organisational
development challenge to instantiate the OSC with the
correct mandate and role, and to make it an accepted player
of the plan execution and plan deviation management.
6. A change capable organisation
Cooperation in teams is an important aspect of the concept
of expertise used by Weick and Sutcliffe (2007). They view
expertise as a combination of knowledge, experience,
learning and intuitions, seldom found in one person but
made possible by a team of people, and say that one of the
Rev.3 - 2008-04-23
Integrated Operations Integrated Planning

characteristics of a mindful organisation is that decision

making migrates to informal networks of expertise rather
than organisational rank. Rochlin (1989) uses the term
“epistemic networks” to describe the resilience that is
achieved when people self organize into ad hoc networks to
provide expert problem solving. These thoughts are also
supported in the work of Alberts & Hays (2003) where they
argue that agility is achieved through edge empowered
operations with ability to self synchronise.
We argue that an integrated planning and demand
management process will improve by using the Integrated
Plan as a Boundary Object (Star & Griesemer 1989; Wenger
1998; Wenger 2000). Boundary objects connect different
social worlds and enhance cooperation and communication
Figure 3 Perry-Class Frigate Combat Management System
between different communities of practice and gives
(GENESİS)
possibilities for learning. Star & Griesemer (1989) says that
situation awareness is mandatory for the success of IPL as a
boundary objects are flexible enough to adapt to local needs,
method to create an agile and resilient operation. With
but also robust enough to maintain an identity across sites.
common situation awareness and the overview over the
According to Wenger (1998, 2000) learning will happen
actual resource utilisation and resource plans the OSC
when members from a community of practice are exposed to
community shall be in a position to evaluate the effect of
different forms of practice. Rolland/Hepsø/Montairo
deviations and also advice about opportunities and potential
(2006) show how boundary objects and CIS (Common
recovery paths when a deviation to the plan has occurred. In
Information Spaces) are dynamic and have to be
performing this activity it is potentially viable to have
renegotiated in order to be relevant to a changing operative
simulators or other tools at hand to be able sort out the
reality in offshore operations and to establish a negotiated
consequence of a change. It is believed that this evaluation
common perception of what has to be done and what
will be performed in a collaborative manner.
limitation is imminent in the operations ahead. This is
When a response to a deviation has been found this has to be
particularly true for an integrated plan that in the extreme
put into action and the OSC must have access to the logistic
case have to be renegotiated continually if the operative
resources in such a way that they directly can give the order
reality changes.
of implementing the change. Resources belonging to other
Since we can not build plans robust enough to not
disciplines will be operated by them self, but there has to be
experience changes we need to build an organisation capable
established chain of command ensuring the effectuation of
of handling the deviations that will occur in the plan, the
the revised plans. This indicates that we have dualistic
major success criteria of integrated operations will be the
organisation utilising a network centric approach for
ability to establish a change capable organisation, also
problem solving and a traditional hierarchy for
known as agile and resilient operations. In this context the
implementation of solutions. This duality has to be well
agile capability is related to the ability to take advantage of a
defined to avoid blurring the responsibility. The thought of a
deviation and turning it into something positive with respect
duality deviate slightly from the thought of Alberts & Hays
to the business objectives. The resilient capability is the
(2003) who state that the truly network centric organisation
ability to recover from perturbations or continuous stress
will be self synchronising. By self synchronising one could
and being able to maintain functioning.
be led to believe that the hierarchical chain of command no
The major elements of being change capable are; (i) having
longer will be in effect. This is not the basic idea in NCW as
overview over the actual situation and the resource
the Command Intent always is relayed through the chain of
situations, (ii) having the required resources to do something
command, but the execution decisions are made distributed.
with the change at hand. This functionality is to some extent
We postulate that decision making strategy will be dynamic
perfected in military combat management system like the
and situation dependent whether or not a decision is made in
depicted ship born combat management room below.
the hierarchy or by the network. For the organisation to be
agile it has to have the capability to make distributed
For planners and logistic support to be able to comprehend
decisions but there has to be a hierarchical chain of
the situation in the operating disciplines a method of
command to efficiently implement decision affecting
keeping them informed have to establish. This can range
broader parts of the organisation.
from traditional meetings, virtual meeting places, co-
location, web services, advanced situation status display
concepts and applications. The utilisation of business
intelligence SW for data enhancement can prove effective to
enhance situation awareness. The establishment of common

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 Integrated Operations Integrated Planning

Pontecorvo and B. Burge (eds.): Discourse, Tools, and

Reasoning: Essays on Situated Cognition. Berlin: Springer-
7. Conclusion Verlag,.
We have showed that offshore operation planning today is
departmentalised and as a consequence of this task planning Rolland/Hepsø/Montairo (2006) Conceptualising Common
is not synchronised with logistic support. This has Information Spaces Across Heterogeneous Contexts:
historically driven logistic support to perform under a Mutable Mobiles and Side-effects of Integration. CSCW 06
surplus strategy, providing more capacity then required in November 4-8, 2006, Banaff, Alberta, Canada
order to accommodate fluctuation in demand and covering
for imperfections in plan integration. The problem is not that
the discipline plans are of low quality but they are not
coordinated with other activities and they are not translated
to the needs of logistics.
The way to achieve Integrated Planning is through the
establishment of a cyclic inter departmental planning
process where the Integrated Plan serves as a boundary
object for the operations.
We argue that an agile organisation can be achieved by
establishing an Operations Support Centre with the mandate
to support, prioritise and coordinate necessary activities
when deviation from plans occurs. The use of an OSC will
facilitate situational awareness and represents a focal point
for information collection/enhancement and decision
making. This is achieved trough a thoroughly designed
organisational development process changing a
departmentalised and hierarchical organisation towards a
networks oriented organisation. Changing a multi discipline
and knowledge intensive operation like offshore operations
is only possible through knowledge enhancements and
development of a learning organisation. Only through
increased knowledge about the complete operations and it
dependencies can one achieve the required situational
awareness necessary for the agility needed to handle plan
deviations more efficient.

8. References
Alberts & Hays (2003) Power to the Edge – Command
Control in the Information Age, CCRP Publications Series

Wheelock (1997), Review criteria for the Logistic Plan;

Joint Force Quarterly Spring 1997, pp128-133

E.A.Smith Jr. Network Centric Warfare: Where’s the beef? -

www.iwar.org.uk (RMA&C4I)

Asbjørnslett, Bjørn Egil (2005) ”BRO - Bedre, Raskere

Operasjoner” Prosjektrapport for Statoil UPN DST & F&U,
Trondheim: MARINTEK

Perrow, Charles (1999) “Normal accidents”, New Jersey:

Princeton University Press

Suchman, Lucy (1997) “Centers of Communication: A case

and some themes” pp. 41–62 in L.B. Resnick, R.Säljö, C.

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