Recently, Zia Consulting attended The Western Energy Institute (WEI) Operations 2022 Conference from April 19-22, 2022. This conference brought together hundreds of electric and natural gas energy operations senior leaders, managers, supervisors and front-line people. We were able to network with interesting people, and participate in thought-provoking general sessions and keynote presentations. Breakout sessions were also available to tackle specific operations functions. These included topics like: Operational Leadership, Workforce Development, Safety and Health, Safety Management Systems, Asset Management, Damage Prevention, Natural Gas Green Future, Natural Gas Emergency Response and Restoration, Natural Gas Integrity management, Natural Gas Operational Excellence, Grid Resilience, Electric Distribution, Grid of the Future, Electric Substation, and Electric Transmission. In addition to having our own vendor booth, we enjoyed browsing the other booths and discussing some of the most challenging problems facing energy and utility companies today.
Applying the Hyperautomation Superhighway to the Energy Exploration and Production (E&P) Sector
We know that the energy exploration and production (E&P) sector is a high-risk, high-reward industry that is fraught with challenges due to heavy information exchanges from joint ventures, mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. Whether working onshore or offshore, the content exchanged is file intensive, both in volume and size. It is labor intensive in terms of people and processes. This is problematic, and creates a scenario where It is vital for energy companies to properly manage their information and minimize risk. It is also crucial to keep and maintain company records for regulatory and compliance purposes.
Zia Consulting’s solutions provide frictionless information transfers between owner-operators, EPCs, and regulatory bodies. During the conference, we were able to share how our Hyperautomation Superhighway helps eliminate many of the inefficiencies, human errors, increasing costs, and lack of scalability that is imminent in the industry.
So, what is the Hyperautomation Superhighway? We use this process to help companies address their digital transformation, hyperautomation, and automated governance needs. As it relates to the energy sector, digital transformation involves improving drawing and process change management, operational maintenance, and information federation and data duplication. Our hyperautomation services help with things like joint use permitting, incident response, and customer service requests. Automated governance supports energy companies with automated compliance reporting, critical infrastructure protection, EHS reporting, and ESG disclosures. All of these are important to a high functioning company.
Understanding and Managing Risk
Steve Studer, subject matter expert for extracting value out of structured and unstructured content, was there to glean information about how to help our customers better understand information architectures and leverage enterprise content management systems. One of his favorite sessions was, “Beyond Compliance: The Role of Risk Assessment in Asset Management.” Conference presenters, Cheryl Campbell and Kaz Berjian, addressed critical issues related to risk management. They suggested that everything that a company does presents some degree of operational risk. Therefore, every company has to decide what they consider to be an acceptable level of risk. They suggested that workers suffer from many of the same problems they have for decades. Things like attrition, workforce and knowledge transfer, track records, management of assets and critical records, and having detailed documentation continue to be a challenge. These challenges are exacerbated by the devastating consequences of catastrophic events like gas explosions and fires. It is critical that companies build effective teams that can differentiate unacceptable risk from tolerable and broadly acceptable risk. Then, they need to be able to communicate what they know in a way that their audience can understand. This involves ongoing conversations in a language that people can understand.
Residual risk is inevitable. They urged companies to focus on controlling and managing the things they could, being prepared to respond to things they cannot control, and not accepting long timelines. Instead, determine the best way to manage risk at the same time as mitigating it. Identifying potential risks ahead of time and proactively planning for potential risks is way better than being in the dark. Implementing “safety first culture” can go a long way in preventing job related injuries. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 5,333 workers died from job-related injuries in 2019. This is a 2 percent increase from 2018 and a 17 percent increase from 2010.
Cases go to trial when energy and utility companies are at the source of catastrophic events. When this happens, they are asked to show that they have and understand their own procedures, follow their procedures with integrity, maintain their equipment, and document everything. Conference presenters even used the phrase, “Document, Document, Document!!” to suggest exactly how important it is. They went on to provide a framework for companies to implement “document drills” as a way for employees to practice. During these drills, employees respond to a simulated accident. They pull up their procedures and go through the entire process of responding to an event. If they have a problem with any aspect, they practice until they are prepared. This increases their ability to respond quickly and reduce the likelihood of injuries when it really matters.
Technologies Role in Creating a Safety First Culture
An important aspect of a safety first culture is valuing life above all else. Those who work in a high-hazard industry have to start with recognizing that a mistake can lead to serious injuries, or even death. When a company’s number one objective is to protect people, they focus more on safety and ultimately make better decisions. You can learn more about Worker Safety Resolutions for Construction and Utility Companies here. It is also important to consult with workers in the field to better understand risks and safety concerns. Noone knows the on-the-ground situation better than the workers themselves. Workers need to feel like it is easy and non-punitive to report their concerns. Fear of repercussions will hinder the likelihood they speak up. Leaders in the company need to listen and follow through with fixing safety concerns. Unresponsive leadership breaks employee’s trust and decreases the likelihood they will speak up. Finally, learning from mistakes is essential. Revisiting past safety incidents goes beyond accepting simplistic explanations. Whether the incident was a result of not following procedures or using the wrong equipment, it is important to gain a deep understanding of the situation. You can read more about creating this kind of culture here.
Now, anyone that has been in leadership knows exactly how much time it takes to build a culture like this! Not only is it time consuming, it is an ongoing process. Working with Zia Consulting to improve documentation and data management systems creates room for leadership to focus on building a safety first culture instead of performing menial tasks. Their cloud-based hyperautomation platform uses a five-step process that can be applied to new or existing line-of-business applications. The platform allows companies to customize use while maintaining ownership and control of their data. An investment in Zia’s Hyperautomation Superhighway is a piece of the puzzle for companies that want to save valuable time and money.
Zia’s Application of Changes in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platforms
Old Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platforms helped companies store data. Today, these platforms go beyond that, making it possible to find and extract important information. Zia Consulting Consulting helps companies be proactive versus reactive. By setting up the right process, companies can ensure data is documented, stored, and accessible. They address problems with knowledge and information transfer by focusing on mitigating risk and improving quality and safety at the same time. Regulatory compliance is addressed by protecting IP across firewalls and in the cloud. Companies learn how to know where their information needs to reside. This makes documents and data searchable, shareable, and fully integrated with other systems. Finally, Zia Consulting can help companies replace manual processes with automated technology. In other words, they learn to let technology work for them!
Recently, Zia Consulting worked with an electric utility company that manages the flow of electric power to tens of millions of customers. This company performed tasks like scheduling power on an electric grid that connects thousands of miles of transmission lines and hundreds of generating units. They also did financial settlement for the competitive wholesale bulk-power market and administers retail switching for millions of premises in competitive choice areas. In all of this, they had to stay compliant with government regulations. Upholding these responsibilities required a strong focus on accurate and efficient internal communication. Zia helped them build an internal and external website for listing reports and available products. They build a workflow process for creating and editing notifications to customers and affiliated partners multiple times per week. And, they consolidated internal communications so that everyone could reliably access information. You can read more about the specific work that Zia Consulting did here.
We enjoyed the conference and want to give a special thank you to those who came by to talk to Zia Consulting at Booth #13. We had great conversations about the Building Blocks to Intelligent Automation.
We’re here to answer questions and support you in taking a ride on the Hyperautomation Superhighway. Don’t be a victim of inefficient systems that take up time, money, and resources that could be used to reduce risks and ultimately save lives.