Creating a Culture of Innovation with ConocoPhillips

As a speaker for the upcoming Operational Excellence in Oil and Gas Online event (November, 2-4), we sat down with Mark Hutcherson, Director of Operations Excellence at ConocoPhillips Global Production to find out more about how they are creating a culture of innovation and implementing new technologies.

The event is FREE to attend for In House Industry Professionals - register online here. 

OGIQ: What have been some of your key areas of focus over the past 18 months?

Mark: The focus is still very much on innovation, technology and data analytics. It’s been a couple of years, so I’m a lot more heavily involved and informed on what we’re doing across the company. My role is heavily focused on our operational excellence programme. It relates to assessing different BUs under operational excellence performance, in addition to other ambitions.

Presently, we’re focusing heavily on incorporating the use of digital technologies, data analytics and innovative culture into our more traditional operational excellence programme.

We’re also considering a lot of the connected worker platforms that are available, and completing proofs of concept for either the platform itself or adjusting our work processes, with the aim to improve the way we execute our daily field operations.

Alongside our focus on connected worker, digital twin is something that is gaining a lot of steam as of late. There are two main aspects to this concept. A lot of people think of digital twin as this 3D model that incorporates all of your facility information and
isometrics, your P&IDs, equipment tag information etc. into a digital world, and then using that for job planning and scheduling.

Whilst we’re pursuing some of that, we are also pursuing more modelling of the process, looking into some of the traditional integrated production modelling and equipment performance modelling. aspects are being enhanced with some of these digital twin technologies, especially when you’re incorporating sensors and other devices.

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Join 1000 business leaders at the upcoming OpEx in Oil and Gas Online event this November 2-4 to learn how companies are establishing cost-competitive operations and scaling operational improvement initiatives quickly. Secure your place here.

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OGIQ: The Connected Worker is such a high priority area for companies right now. Where is CoP on your connected worker journey?

Mark: Currently, we’re in the process of evaluating which partnerships we want to form. There are roughly a dozen vendors we’ve looked at that have connected worker platforms with a focus on data integration and visualisation tools so that your mobile devices can be used constructively to integrate work processes. Our game plan this year is to narrow that down to a select few and pilot things in various business units, but we haven’t formally announced any partnerships at this stage.

Click the download button to read the rest of the interview. Mark will be speaking at Operational Excellence in Oil and Gas Online this November 2-4. Secure your place here.