Having trouble converting your data to insights? Is your workflow suffering because you are wasting time on the little things? There are many reasons we waste time. With rapid improvements in technology, we gain not only benefits, but also distractions. Taking the time to better utilize new technology for specific tasks can save time down the road.
As a geoscientist or reservoir engineer, you are probably all too familiar with growing workflows. With an overload of complex data, it is becoming more difficult to effectively and efficiently capture opportunities, delineate risk, and manage projects. Read on to see what some of the most common problems are, as well as some easy solutions.
5 Reasons Your Big Data Workflow is Suffering
In the oil and gas industry, we strive to improve the output of our petroleum reservoirs every day, but why is it we waste so much of our most precious resource – TIME?
1. Gathering and evaluating data from endless sources
With data stored in data lakes, warehouses, public data bases, vendor data bases, and in-house, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to dig in and find exactly what you need. And with duplicates of the same data, sometimes it isn’t so easy to know which data set is the most accurate and adds value for the current project. Converting data to insights is still proving difficult according to an MIT study 1:
In the same study, “some respondents report spending 40% of their time just LOOKING for data.”
Have you ever tried to piece together data for a given item only to find multiple data sets with different values? This is a common problem among geoscientists and petroleum engineers. And with so many different formats and locations, it can require running multiple applications to simply view the data, making it difficult to evaluate and make comparisons. How can you effectively compare different data values when they aren’t even displayed on the same map?
And then there is Bad Data, which costs $3 trillion a year. When we notice something in a data set isn’t right, we don’t always communicate it to the source. We don’t have the time and we think our comment or correction will be ignored by the vendor. The way we handle our data needs some improvement so that bad data doesn’t cause your workflow to suffer and a cascade of unnecessary costs down the road.
2. Not combining data sources onto one map
With so many applications out there catering to different disciplines, it can be hard to see everything on one map. Data vendors tend to deliver their data to you in their proprietary software or format. To make comparisons across different vendors, you have to jump between screens and make lots of notes, as more time wastes away.
3. Too many meetings
A typical team consists of multiple disciplines running several discipline specific platforms, and not everyone has access to the same information, making collaboration difficult. There is no easy way to share our conclusions from our deep dive program with team members, who are all using their own specialty programs. Also, the discipline specific deep dive platforms require us to update the data in our projects when new information becomes available. This means that when a “what if” question comes up, it can’t be answered on the spot because we first need to update our deep analysis application with the new information. We all wish we had the answers at our fingertips, but yet another meeting is usually the answer.
4. Not getting the big picture
When you can’t see the forest for the trees, you miss things.
Project boundaries don’t always let you see the big picture and keep you from looking at your data in a regional context. That means you have to imagine what is going on beyond that fence. When a “what if” question comes up, you have to reload the application with the new information before you can answer the question. When project boundaries are removed and you get the big picture, you instantly gain insight to any region and can spot trends that were formerly invisible. The big picture is necessary for effective planning and forecasting.
5. Duplicating research
Have you ever worked on something only to find it wasn’t necessary? Bad documentation, data handling, and communication within a company leads to a lot of wasted hours. There is no excuse for paying high dollar specialists to research an area that has already been researched. Standardized data cataloging is important so that everything is stored logically and easy to find.
PetroDE to the Rescue
PetroDE is a unique application that leverages the power of the cloud to accelerate data, aggregate data, integrate data mining with geospatial analytics, and improve collaboration between disciplines, teams and management.
Everything on one map
PetroDE lets you store and easily compare and evaluate data for your project or any area of interest, regardless of format. We store your data in team workbooks for easy access, and display all of your data, whether it is from different vendors, in-house proprietary data, or public data sources – all on ONE MAP! Not only that, our graphs and charts let you easily evaluate different types of data on top of each other to see values for a particular point in space and time. We accurately and quickly show outliers so you can determine if there is a mistake in the data, or if the data point is valid and worthy of interest.
No more jumping between applications and paper maps to get the results you need. Our geospatial data integration gets you the answers you need, fast.
“I’ve been trained on other geoscience software several times over the past 30 years. I’d always get frustrated and give up… until I found PetroDE. This is a very simple, logical, and versatile program to go out and acquire the information I need to understand what’s going on in an area quickly.” – Senior Geologist
Dynamic Meetings
PetroDE turns once static meetings into dynamic decision sessions. Those “what if” questions can be answered in real time when your data is kept up to date on our cloud-based application. Legacy data systems require you to rework your analysis back at your workstation and schedule yet another meeting. Our cloud software puts the answers at your fingertips so that decisions can be made by interactively looking at the numbers, graphs, locations, etc. that drive your decisions. With the entire team looking at the same up-to-date information, decisions for your next venture can be made in one meeting instead of six.
Get the Big Picture
PetroDE replaces static presentations with a digital map that conveys the big picture and yields analytics at the click of a button.
The most current data is shared in real-time to enable well informed decisions in a fraction of the time. Instead of scrambling to reload static data and schedule yet another meeting, you can bring the most up-to-date data with you and provide visual answers to those “what if” questions instantly. Now that’s what we call streamlining the workflow!
“I love being able to go within an area of interest, identify the key operator, figure out the number of wells they operate, and then calculate their gross production right away. Quickly getting the information you need for economics makes a huge difference.” – Reservoir Engineer
Organized project data
PetroDE helps you avoid duplicating research by keeping you organized with our workbooks and folders. Team members are kept up to date on the latest findings for any area of interest. With our tools, you can instantly share ideas and keep them organized. And with our annotation feature, you can make notes directly on a map to convey your findings.
PetroDE is the tool you need to make recommendations to your team with confidence and in record time. Stop wasting your most precious resource and start using PetroDE today!
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1 S. Ransbotham and D. Kiron, “Using Anaytics to Improve Customer Engagement,” MIT Sloan Management Review, January 2018.