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Abstract Objectives/Scope This paper describes a three-year performance improvement journey of Ursa, a Shell DeepWater Tension Leg Platform (TLP) in the Gulf of Mexico, from 2014-2016. The paper will describe the starting point, the foundation for change that was built with leadership, organizational engagement, designing a change program and the process of delivering that program to establish new levels of performance within the organization. The organizational scope includes asset leadership, offshore Facilities/Production staff and on-shore support staff.
Methods/Procedures/Process The improvement journey involved understanding and increasing organizational capability, recurring reviews of the asset's strengths and performance gaps, selection of improvement initiatives that matter, timely execution of improvements and ensuring that planned results were sustained.
Some of the ways Ursa changed the way it works include:
The creation and adoption of robust Business Plan Deployment process
Focusing improvement efforts only on key gaps and processes
Ensuring improvement initiatives linked results, processes, management systems, leadership behaviors, through change and learning capability
Rigorously applying Plan-Do-Check-Adjust approach to selected improvements
Improving the team's capabilities and consistency in problem solving
Personal goals linked to organizational vision
Optimizing maintenance
Streamlining the Management System (one element: time spent in meetings is now useful and short)
Performance coaching throughout the organization
Ursa's learnings are applicable to any capital-intensive organization.
Results/Observations/Conclusions Like most organizations, Ursa had been subject to many improvement efforts before the time covered by this paper. However, the results of these improvement efforts had been mixed and were often not sustainable. This led to a predictable attitude in the organization that these "flavor of the month" improvements would come and go, without much change to daily operations.
The approach taken by the Ursa team changed that. By systematically improving how each person thought about, executed and validated their work, performance was materially improved. This took Ursa from a well-performing organization content with its output, to a truly world-class team that continually looks for the best ways to improve and optimize performance.
Improvements realized:
Reduced Operating Expenses (DL&F) by 40%, while maintaining safety and asset integrity
Delivering 25% of the Free Cash in the parent company's business unit with a 28% reduction in unit Operating Cost.
Increased Production 27% through aggressive development and reservoir pressure increases
Improved Deferment, resulting in 96% total availability, replicating downstream's deferment performance in upstream
Waterflood availability, increased from 64% to 87%
These improvements enabled Ursa to thrive in this low-oil price environment, lead in profitability versus peers, and become a model for TLP operations within Shell.
Novel/Additive Information Most companies understand how to cut cost/activity…but you can't cut your way to an engaged workforce with more effective work execution. Ursa has found a way to engage its team to achieve dramatic results in this highly challenging environment. Read on to see how you can too.
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