August 2005
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Guest Editorial: Applying HSE Lessons to Information Management

Sundaram Srinivasan, SPE, Schlumberger
 
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Sundaram Srinivasan, SPE, manages the Oilfield Services Testing Facility for Schlumberger in Houston. He has more than 20 years of experience in the oil and gas industry in strategic planning, customer interface management, business growth, general management, and technology management. He has been an adviser to several startup companies in the U.S. and was one of the founding members of the Danish chapter of the Intl. Assn. of Drilling Contractors. Srinivasan was named SPE Outstanding Technical Editor for Drilling and Completions in 2004. He earned an MBA degree from the Sloan School at the Massachusetts Inst. of Technology and a Bachelor of Technology degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Inst. of Technology, Delhi.

 
  

Business has entered the age of information management, and the oil and gas industry is no different. Remember the days of cable-tool drilling and even the good old Kelly? Well, the top-drive days are here—or should I say the “hard drive” days?—and the oil and gas industry should capitalize on the benefits of this evolution through judicious and efficient practices. Probably no other industry is as dependent on data and its manipulation in such variety as ours. Some industries have greater information flow per unit of time (e.g., banking), and there are those in which the quality of data is absolutely crucial (e.g., health care), but where else would you find an industry that has such large volumes of data, shifts between aggregated data at very macro levels (e.g., seismic), and correlation with very-high-resolution data (e.g., logging)? And where else would you find such a capital-intensive industry in which the information itself is such a vital asset?

But the industry is still leaving a lot of value on the table by not capitalizing on optimum information management opportunities. I have had the good fortune to have led many lives in this industry over the last 20 years, and that experience has led me to conclude that perhaps the answer lies within the industry itself. There are many lessons to be learned from other areas, which might be initially counterintuitive, and in particular health, safety, and environment (HSE) management.

The HSE Parallel
The 1970s and even the early 1980s saw an industry that did not see a terrible need to invest heavily in safety and the environment. Oh, yes, the talk was there, but not the walk. It was not until the realization came that HSE was, indeed, good business that the momentum for change in this area began to occur. Even then, progress was slow, and the concept of a job in HSE only gradually shifted from being viewed with a negative connotation (a “pasture” job) to that of a job that really made a difference to the business. The industry was still largely in a reactive mode when the effects of poor HSE management started to become evident after some industry accidents.

Then came the most important change in thinking that really caused the step change in HSE performance: HSE became a line-management responsibility. I can still remember the first questions in almost every HSE audit that I have ever done or received: “Who is in charge of HSE around here?” was a question typically asked to the base or facility or enterprise manager. The answer slowly moved over the decade from “My safety manager” to “I am.” And that is precisely what the missing link is today in information management. Information management is not a line-management responsibility today; it is either the responsibility of the chief information officer (CIO) or someone in the information technology department.

Applying Lessons Learned
What follows is a brief step-by-step process detailing how information management should be thought of and handled, drawing from the lessons learned in the growth of proper HSE management:

  1. Recognize the issue and accept that there is a problem. You have to know where you are before you can get to where you want to go.
  2. Change the metrics from “information management spending/revenue” to “revenue/information management spending.” Too often, the emphasis is on the cost of information management. But the emphasis should be on how much value are you getting from what you spend on information management. This simple reversal sends a strong message.
  3. Get everyone in the company involved. By this, I mean all departments.
  4. Solicit advice across the board for ways to improve the management of information in your company.
  5. Invest in getting the data that you need.
  6. Identify key areas for improvement.
  7. Act on the data that you get, invest in it, and implement accordingly. Many reports are generated but never analyzed and acted upon.
  8. Inspect and audit the implementation of your system. Make it a big deal because it is a big deal. There are dollars at stake.
  9. Make information management a clear line-management responsibility. The line manager should ask himself what he did today to improve his information management value capture. A CIO can provide sound advice, but it should be clear that the responsibility rests with the line manager.