Enterprise Planning - Smart Thinking
1 September 2008
Imagine an organisation, which has joined up thinking, one that knows what resources are needed on current projects across the business and manages its people, materials and equipment in direct response to this knowledge.
Many business leaders think that their company and its people think laterally and communicate widely to benefit the organisation as a whole, but scratch the surface and most will realise they've still got a long way to go to reach this level of smart thinking.
This way of thinking and working is known as Enterprise Planning and is fast becoming the key management tool used by many major oil and gas companies to improve their cross company communication. The theory, which has been around for years, was created to help teams consider the activities of the enterprise as a whole, not just an individual activity on one asset or a particular project, during the planning stages.
Enterprise activity planning can be defined as deployment of a single process and planning system to include all activities within the bounds of a defined
It can lead to:
· Improved activity execution both onshore and offshore; more effective budgeting and business planning, clearer priorities and ways to manage change
· Optimisation of onshore and offshore resources within the platform/asset and between the platforms/assets
· Creation of more effective reporting systems for onshore and offshore leadership
However getting any company to start thinking in this way poses a challenge. Changing culture is not an overnight process and can sometimes take years to achieve.
Enterprise Planning is something which Dr Clive Randall at Facilitators International LLP - an established consultancy partnership delivering sustainable business solutions - knows a thing, or two about. For the last two years Clive, who's spent more than a decade working in the energy sector, has led the design, deployment and operation of an enterprise planning system for an oil major. He has also mentored the design and deployment of enterprise planning systems for a number of other major oil and gas companies through Facilitators' team of senior planners embedded in organisations.
"You tend to find that most companies have different teams working on different projects, each following their own plans and probably using different applications, with little way of knowing what others in the organisation are working on," Clive says. "They don't use joined up thinking when in the planning stages and as a result don't know if they could be sharing resources on certain projects. In the long run changing this aspect of the planning process alone can potentially save the organisation money.
"In recent years oil and gas companies have warmed to the idea of using one asset planning process and sharing key information on projects with each other. This way of working (which has become known as enterprise planning) allows companies to look across its assets and check if similar work is being undertaken at the same time which could, for example, require the same equipment hire. It also optimises campaigns across platforms and the use of drilling rigs across assets and projects. This thinking can even be extended to risk, to ensure there is a balance of low, medium and high risk activities across an enterprise, rather than a phase of predominantly low or high risk - depending on an organisation's sensitivity to risk.
"This planning process, which is reliant on a change of culture more than anything else, can take many years to achieve. As a first step I spend time in-house with a company to discuss how the team currently works - it's important at this stage to get a complete picture from all stakeholders - from top senior management to offshore supervisors. This ensures that key issues come to light."
Having moved to
Clive continues: "Sometimes Facilitators places someone in-house but some companies prefer to nominate key project managers from their own teams and use the support of Facilitators on either a short or long term basis. Either way the issues that come to light within each company have been very similar - the most common theme being that there is little long term planning or strategy across the enterprise with little or no cross asset prioritisation taking place.
"Sometimes we meet people who are dead set against planning and process - and our suggested steps towards a change of culture can be even more challenging. There can be resistance ? but there are different ways of managing this aspect of any change process. I like to prove that the change will work, as I believe actions speak louder than words. Some personalities like to take on 15 actions in one go and are not suited to having anyone containing them - so for these individuals it's a case of "softly, softly" and proving that there are better ways of working. Obviously with some individuals it can be more difficult than with others but it can be done."
"There are huge benefits to enterprise planning - personnel as well as process and business delivery., By having a standardised process within the organisation this enables movement of people between projects more easily as well adding more structure into future planning and avoiding reactive thinking and behaviours."
There's no doubt, in the long term, enterprise planning could save companies money. There will be an initial outlay though as companies work to get systems in place. Eventually projects will start to share crews and implement focussed campaigns with fewer clashes - and the benefits will be felt across the spectrum.
Further Information
Please contact Clive Randall for further details.
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