The daunting task of keeping track of your expenses can be time-consuming and overwhelming if not managed correctly and efficiently. With the increase of mobile apps and other productivity tools, managing expenses has gotten easier.

For oil and gas, managing lease operating expenses (LOE) has gotten easier with automation and software solutions. Now, there are fewer reasons not to have the costs eat away at your companies’ ability to operate wells and keep costs within budget without having to shut-in operations.

Figuring out how to get the best performance out of small devices called Field Gateways may not sound like the stuff of adventure—and I admit, Daniel Craig will probably not be playing me in a movie anytime soon.

Getting the best performance and information storage out of battery-powered Field Gateways means you can monitor and control even the most remote installations—those for whom the nearest telephone pole on the power grid is a couple of counties over.

Have you read about the advance of self-driving cars? With an array of sensors “seeing” obstacles, speed limit signs and other vehicles, tracking the speed, noting highway conditions such as rain or sleet, and using maps and tracking to plan the route, self-driving vehicles are approaching us in their own fast lane.

You may not be surprised to find that we have the same dreams for a self-operating oil field.

Now there will still be the need for repairs of worn-out equipment, damaged well-bores, and to perform PMs such as oil changes. There’s the need to do that for vehicles as well. The autonomous oil change is not here yet, but even that might be in line for cars someday.

How often have you worked on a written assignment only to have an unexpected computer failure, and you lose all your information because it did not save? Once this happens, you either look for other ways to recover your work or get stuck starting from the beginning.  

When the unexpected happens, you want to pick up where you left off, especially when it comes to business operations. For this reason, it is essential to implement a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and have the appropriate technology to support services in the event of unforeseen circumstances.

How do you like working from home? Since our world turned upside down I think it's been easier for some of us to adjust than others to remain, or even become more productive. Most of which completely depends on how you access your files and data to continue to WOW the boss, even in the strangest of times when people are told we have to stay home.

You need your files and data to all be easily visible from top to bottom without relying on thumb drives, portable hard drives, old drives, or clunky undependable drives that should have been replaced years ago or, worst of all—boxes of paper files (I'm cringing at the thought of that one)!

“Zedi is light years ahead of the competition at automation implementation!”

This statement has become a common theme at our client meetings. Producers urgently require the deployment of an automation strategy in their fields; however, implementation has historically lagged for weeks, months or even years when working with other vendors. These producers typically receive conflicting information on exactly what is involved in the deployment, what is needed from them, and what their automation partner is truly capable of bringing to the table.

We set out to change that.

Here in the Eagle Ford plays of deep south Texas, we have plenty to worry about: heat, dust, the occasional rattlesnake, and H2S for starters. Life certainly keeps us on our toes!

What our customers like about having their remote monitoring data readily available through Zedi Access is that it shortens their list of things to worry about. Considerably.

What if your wells or pipelines could call you up and tell you they were sick before they went down?

Most of the time now, in the oil patch, the first we know of a problem is when the pump breaks down, the compressor slams on the brakes, a valve gives way or there’s some other catastrophic—and expensive—problem.

What if we could use Big Data to start detecting the lead-up to a problem and fix it before it became a shutdown or, in the case of a pipeline, a big leak? It could help our people work smarter by doing small jobs in time to reduce the major ones.

I always love a good conference—one where the speakers not only have good information, but where they also dream a little bit about how the new information will improve the future. It always spurs my own imagination about how we can better use technology to partner with our clients and help them achieve their goals.