Turning Around an Insourced Operations Centre
A major energy operator ran an insourced operations centre, supporting multiple countries. The business was experiencing operational disruption from technology issues. Recently discovered cybersecurity gaps were adding material risk.
The team was capable and committed. But the operation had been built without the fundamentals to run it. There were no service level agreements. No scheduled maintenance windows. No data against which to measure performance. The team was firefighting constantly and falling further behind.
I was brought in to fix technology operations. The first priority was stopping the firefighting. From there, I established service levels, planned maintenance, and measurement that made performance visible, and created the conditions for a culture of continuous improvement.
Within three months, stability had improved and production disruptions had reduced. Within twelve months, the cybersecurity exposure had been closed.
Most technology problems come down to a critical few priorities that nobody has identified. This was no different.
Leading a Digital Transformation Program
A major energy operator launched a digital transformation across its operations, spanning multiple large-scale producing assets.
I was appointed to lead it. The programme was organised around strategic pillars, including connected workers and smart facilities. To give it the authority it needed, the programme was elevated to report directly to the executive accountable for the producing assets, outside the IT function.
Two initiatives illustrate the approach. The first was deploying smartphones to field workers across the operation. This required navigating competing platform preferences, safety controls for hazardous areas on the plants, and the operational complexity of a large-scale field rollout. The result was a platform for field applications that transformed productivity and how the workforce communicated and operated.
The second was a digital twin of a major offshore platform, aggregating hundreds of terabytes of data from laser point cloud surveys, drone imagery, engineering systems, operational procedures, and tens of thousands of real-time sensors. It transformed maintenance turnaround planning, significantly reducing the time and effort required and eliminating the need for most site visits. The initiative was recognised in the operator's annual report.
The key to a successful digital transformation is to establish the ambition level and then empower people to get after it.