How to implement Field Development Planning (FDP) processes

The Challenge

The client was a multinational energy company, with a presence in most countries of the world. Whilst the client had mature business processes defined and shared across teams, the processes were on paper and did not connect with users.

The client was already using Flare’s Catalog and Taxonomy technologies to classify a wide range of energy information types, with more than twelve million items stored in the system.

The Field Development Plan was a critical process in the organisation, and it was difficult to implement the process consistently in each field, or to know where in the process a particular field development plan was. It was also very difficult to find all Field Development Plan’s and their related documentation.

Flare’s Approach

The existing Field Development process was analysed, and a Tracker equivalent best practice was developed, capturing key workflow and deliverables. Tracker allowed the deliverables for each step to be clearly identified, with the option to add delivery dates and responsible parties for each step.

An appropriate governance model and roll-out plan was developed with the client.

The Tracker process was mandatory and adopted globally. This facilitated a key principal that all metadata entries are visible to all – thereby making it easy for any manager to see where any asset was in the process.

This project was a digital transformation, taking a well-established business process, previously communicated through documents and manuals and effectively turning it into an application to assist all stakeholders.

Outcomes

• The client was already benefiting from the Catalog which improved users access to information across the company. People were able to find the information for their assets, and for related analogues quickly and easily.
• Tracker provided a clear view of what deliverables are required at each step of the process, who is responsible, and whether the documents had been provided.
• The field development teams have far better access to their finalised project information. The visibility of a ‘check-list’ of key deliverables makes it easy to know what to produce and when. The Tracker process once complete, also provides an audit trail of what happened.  So, asking a question such as where is the FDP for Field X, would provide the latest FDP along with a link to the process containing all of the documents produced during its creation.
• All deliverables added the stage gate process also inherited metadata tags, making them easier to find in the Catalog system.
• The Tracker technology has been used to capture the best practice for exploration and new ventures projects, providing similar capabilities to the global Exploration teams.