The benefits of making oil and gas production autonomous are many. Production increases based on the ability to detect and remedy problems in seconds rather than hours is topmost, followed by safety, efficiencies when physical repairs are needed and more precision in PM schedules are among the others.

We’re not there yet—some would point out that the Oil Patch, due to its boom-and-bust nature, lags behind other industries in this area—but we’ve made big strides since the 2015-16 bust. Necessity being the mother of invention.

There is a bit of magic in every childhood story we read. Whether it be the Chronicles of Narnia with its enchanted kingdom or Aladdin’s genie in the lamp, we learn very early that supernatural powers often come in pretty handy.

Maybe you could use some telepathic powers to know what is happening in a remote production location. You’ve probably wished to have psychic abilities to know when a wellsite will stop producing before it happens, or if your team is safe working on site.

Most certainly you’d enjoy the gift of telekinesis to restart an artificial lift.

Do-it-yourself field automation sounds great until you realize all the mind-bending decisions involved.

I think of this when I go to a favorite restaurant—a fast-casual place where you line up in front of a massive menu board loaded with salads, sandwiches, soups, potatoes and…..on and on.

It’s obvious whenever the person in front of me is a first-timer. Eyes wide, hands shaking, lips moving without a sound. Maybe they’re praying. Because I felt that way on my first couple of visits, I can help them. I know how to navigate the menu.

We can easily help you know how to navigate the automation menu, including tank monitoring, because we’ve ordered before. We know the secret ingredients of sensors, the special sauce of communication links and the table setting of data storage and reporting. In short, you sit down, take care of your work—and we’ll order for you.

Snow, freezing rain, flash freezes, sleet, black ice or it all put together on any given day and you have the perfect ingredients for stress, danger and a potential catastrophe; or as most of us refer to it as - Winter.

On top of these Winter stresses, we’re also dealing with trying to balance work, life, deadlines, social, and family obligations. It’s easy to get frustrated and stressed over the extra time and effort it takes to get going each morning, when you have to shovel snow, clear off the car, wait for the defroster to even start working and inevitably, get stuck in endless traffic.

The holiday season is here and no matter which holiday(s) you celebrate (or not), it's a change in the season that affects everyone. Traffic is more hectic as the time draws near, and chances are pretty good that those that said last year that they will be better prepared for the next holiday season, are not.

Most of us will being getting more than enough of an emotional charge from watching way too many of the Christmas movies on TV that we watch every year that always manage to bring our senses to a yearly high. Many of us have family and friends coming to our homes, and we'll will be in a rush to make it a ‘perfect day’ and in a full on panic to get all the details just right to make it memorial, and joyous for all.

For years now we’ve been able to monitor tank levels, compressors, pump operations and flow meters. Most of that is pretty cut-and-dried. The tank is at whatever level it’s at; the pump is either running or it’s not. An alarm tells us what we need to know the minute we need to know it.

But detecting a pipeline leak involves combining a number of data points and deciding which ones, or which combination of points, means there really is a leak. I’m stressing “really” because the industry first believed any anomaly needed to be alarmed because at that point an anomaly equaled leak, and we defiantly know the faster that leak could be stopped, and repaired; the more profits from your production ended up staying in your pocket.

Maybe the most important thing to learn about safety is that it’s a team effort. If one person makes a safety mistake, other team members are at risk, even if those others are doing everything right.

In other words, on the job site, you are indeed your brother’s (and sister’s) keeper.

Safety involves training, reinforcement and engineering to reduce hazards.

Do you have one of those little voices in your head that tells you to take safety shortcuts on home projects? Like when you don’t turn off the breaker before replacing a plug, it says, “What could go wrong?”

Greek and Roman astrologers recognized that, with the rise of the star Sirius in the summer sky, they were about to enter a period of extreme heat, drought, thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs and bad luck… Today we just know this as the hottest part of the summer and with wildfires burning across North America, the effects are easy enough to see!

But, it’s more than fires that endanger lives. Field Service team members are deployed every day to work in the heat and it’s essential that these workers are protected from the hazards of the “Dog Days of Summer.”

Seeing is truly believing. Through Emerson's Zedi Access you can “see” so many issues right from your computer or phone via Zedi Go:

Is my unit running?

What’s the line pressure?

Who's actually on-site?

Is the tank filling up?

Techs and pumpers are already logging much less drive time, the equipment is logging lots more “up” time and the accountants are pushing that bottom line lower and lower. And yet—it still would be nice to actually see what’s happening out there.