What's Your Vision?
Do you have a vision for where you want your gas plant, chemical facility or offshore platform to be in the next five years? Perhaps
you think there is an opportunity to increase production beyond the nameplate design, maybe you are looking to mothball/decommission some
assets, or perhaps you want to engineer out some issues that cause unwanted maintenance, cost, and downtime?
Whatever the case it's important to have that vision and to be able to create the plan on how to achieve this vision. Sometimes this is a
challenging task, particularly in complex and tightly-coupled systems* that oil & gas or chemical facilities typically are. At
other times, normally in less tightly-coupled systems, there may be more options available to solve the problem.
We have recently supported several clients to help them develop their 5 to 10-year vision ("visioneering", if you like) for
their facilities and put in place the various plans and budgets that are necessary to see these goals achieved.
In one such example, we undertook various steps to develop this vision, including:
- Meeting with key stakeholders
- Agreeing the high-level objectives
- Completing some preliminary work (reviewing P&IDs, design manuals, plot plans, etc.)
- Iterating as above, until agreement was reached on further effort vs. future reward
The above steps gave us clarity on what was possible, pragmatic, and affordable, and the iterative approach we adopted allowed us to
progress the work in a systematic manner while conserving expenditure.
After discussing our findings with the client, and advising them on the best options for further effort, we completed this work, all the
while following the iterative approach, instead of trying to solve problems that would not be relevant beyond the 5 to 10-year vision of
the facility.
This approach to developing the vision continued over several months until we and the client agreed that the work undertaken was
sufficient to achieve their objectives and that any further effort would add minimal value.
Need help with your "visioneering"? Please feel free to be in touch:
*Tightly-coupled system - One that has little slack or buffer between systems.
Ref.: Meltdown - Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It, Clearfield and Tilcsik (by the way, a very interesting book for
all of those who work in potentially hazardous industries, such as oil & gas, nuclear, aerospace, etc.).