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.

Maybe you’ve declared your intention to digitally transform your production. That’s great. It’s a growing trend and it will really boost efficiency. But the jury is still out on whether to do it in-house or to let us do it for you.

I have a question that may clarify that decision for you:

What are you good at?

You’re good at evaluating leases, considering how to economically produce a field and to get that oil and gas to market. If you were to jump into the field of developing a cloud based platform, what would that look like in terms of hiring, training and implementing?

It’s surprising how many operators are using one software system or company to monitor tanks, another to automate pumps and yet another for back office reporting software. There may have been a time in history when this was necessary—there was a lot of narrow specialization at one time—but it is definitely hard to keep up with.

When something goes wrong, who do you call? If the problem is beyond the scope of your own people’s training, is the issue with the software, the communication system, or the security of it all? And then who is going to fit the problem itself? This does not help you, or your team focus on your production.

After all, you digitally transformed your operations to increase efficiency, not create confusion and headaches.

Emerson's Zedi Cloud SCADA Solutions team is really all about making data work for you. If you’ve read my previous blogs about all the ways Zedi Vital can use your collected data to help you economize time and resources, you know how much we want to help you in those ways.

I’ve already talked about our Houston area client with 200 wells, whose pumpers get a daily report listing the previous day’s production, with wells sorted in order according to how close each one was to its target volume. That report comes through Zedi Vital, and it really helps this company’s pumpers do the most important work first, based on a bird’s eye view that no one person could ever get by themselves.

HMI (Human Machine Interface) – is really just the software application that presents information to an operator, or a user about the state of a process, then accepts and implements the operators’ control instructions.

This is usually displayed in a graphic format. But, it's that graphic format, and how well (or poorly) it's designed that can make all the difference. We, the humans as the users are generally visual learners. Which is just one of the reasons why our users love our HMI so much; hi-res, crystal clear graphics right in front of them that are easy to understand and give users the ability to make better business decisions.

Awhile back a friend decided to replace a leaky faucet himself and save some money. He thought the faucet was screwed on, so he grabbed a wrench and started twisting away.

When you go to a restaurant, do you order straight off the menu? Or do you substitute mashed potatoes for fries, do you ask for extra tomatoes, or do you ask for rye instead of wheat? Or do you just ask for a number 5, pay your money and go sit down?

When it comes to ordering reports on your field data, you can’t settle for a “Number 5.” There are certain things you need to see first, there are certain ways you want things listed and there are ways you need it broken out.

Want it “your way?” I’m glad you asked. That’s exactly why we put together Emerson's Zedi Vital.

What kind of risk taker were you as a kid? Were you the one who built a rickety ramp out of plywood, braced it up with some loose bricks you found in the yard and wheeled your bike bravely up to the top?

Hey, everybody, watch this!

At the top, you’re surveying the scene and doing a sort of primitive risk management—am I gonna have an exhilarating ride down this ramp, then shoot up toward the stars? Or will I fall off halfway down and smash every bone in my body?

“Dear Producer,” the email should read. “I want to tell you about a problem I have on well number 10. It’s—well, it’s just not producing like it should. I think there may be a liquid loading problem. In truth, this has been building up for a while, and I was afraid something like this would happen. What should we do?”

I don’t know if you ever read advice columns, where people write in and ask for help with relationship issues. Sometimes it’s interesting to see what the columnist has to offer as a solution.

Albert Einstein, as you may recall, was pretty good at understanding complex stuff like, say, the makeup of the universe, quantum physics and the like. It’s interesting that he’s the one who said that if you didn’t understand something well enough to explain it to your grandmother, you didn’t really understand it.

Well, I like to think of myself as something of an oilfield technology expert—I‘m even able to successfully explain it all to my Grandma, who totally ‘gets it’ now. So I hope I can explain its benefits to you in three basic steps.