Use of Advanced Technologies and Information Solutions for North Sea Offshore Assets: Ambitious Changes and Socio-Technical Dimensions

Abstract

The use of various forms of advanced technologies and information solutions are in common place to manage industrial assets today. This is widely seen as the way forward in various industrial sectors owing to range of commercial benefits offered by new technologies and its importance to gain competitive advantage. The objective of this paper is to describe such an ongoing major technology-dependent re-engineering process termed Integrated eOperations in oil and gas exploration and production business in North Sea since 2004-2005, and to highlight the nature of ambitious techno-managerial changes and its critical socio-technical dimensions. The change process focuses on a new development path based on 24/7 online real-time operations, with direct implications on organizational forms and managerial tasks. Given the nature and the scale of ongoing change processes, there are emerging concerns that increasing complexities, ill-defined interfaces can easily lead to serious vulnerabilities and major risks. To avoid such undesirable circumstances, that will surely have long-term commercial repercussions, a holistic socio-technical consideration and early measures to ensure fully-functional and fail-safe system are absolutely necessary.