USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Expanded Focus on Smart Oilfield Technologies
Oil & Gas Process Automation
- The Big Crew has left the building, O&G operators and service providers have cut staff in the 100,000s, office, project and field productivity is down over the last decade, will doing more with less really work?
- Can technology and process automation and stronger governance/compliance oversight bring the oil field to a place where many workflows can be automated (maybe starting from drilling, field monitoring/surveillance and well testing) so that the future oil industry workforce will be fewer humans and more algorithms?
- These new algorithms are now part of the sensor package on pumps, compressors, well heads, compressor stations, smart meters and gauges etc. This would be well integrated into a field process control or SCADA system.
Integrated Production Operations
- Oil Field Artificial Intelligence Deployment (Oil Field “AID”) – equipping the next generation worker to apply knowledge smarter, greatly enhancing the capabilities to perform required workflows in new and innovative ways.
- Production operations remote support center where workflows are more transformed to sort out what can be done remotely, and what must still be done onsite.Reverse the paradigm, start with the default of a “lights out” operation, then decide what might need to still be local vs. remote.
- Design into these “decision centers” the capability of simulating major/key decisions before making them.Reduced risk and confidence of decision outcomes would in turn maximize the value generated decision-by-decision. Enhanced virtualization and human-machine interfaces will enable new innovations.
- For routine, smaller decisions ensure relevant real-time data is available at the fingertips of engineers & operators in order to make quicker, better decisions.
- How can cost management and margins be enhanced to reduce the magnitude and impact of inevitable business cycles?Start mitigating reaction that is too late…
Safe & Reliable Operations
- Removing humans from harm’s way, emphasizing the benefits of the shifting the paradigm or where and how work gets done.
- Securing all assets from cyber and physical threats, ramping up and applying the evolving needs and ideas of protection.
- Ensure integrity and reliability of data and equipment, via enhanced analytics, is maximized through new innovative ways of feeding algorithms, decisions and ultimate value creation.
New Knowledge Workers
- Producing a new breed of worker with competencies to excel in this next generation environment described above.
- New hires into the industry, with graduates prepared to make immediate impact with these new competencies.
- For the “experienced” hires that are remaining, how can they perform & succeed where they have accountabilities that are beyond their applied knowledge base to date?