COVID-19 has been an unparalleled challenge around the world where schools, offices, malls, travel, and entertainment have all been gravely impacted by various degrees of a shutdown. It now appears that COVID-19 is here to stay for a long time until a treatment and a suitable vaccine is found. This is a challenge in front of the scientists and researchers of the entire world. It is not only about finding the vaccine but to do so in record time due to the urgency. Nonetheless, a viable vaccine is likely to be 12-24 months away. We now have to consider how individual industries and sectors should respond to this global calamity and build for a future of resiliency.
The Oil & Gas sector is amongst those that have been most severely impacted by COVID-19 along with ongoing geopolitical tensions that the disease has exacerbated. The forced lockdown is changing the world and new ways of working are emerging in the Oil & Gas sector too. There was a reluctance to adopt the work from home culture for both Engineering Companies and Operators. The forced lockdown has demonstrated that the new norm will be to work in a distributed manner. We will have to move away from the traditional fixed seating offices and move towards a future where free seating will be the norm.
Engineering companies must adapt to maximise the work from home culture. This requires augmentation of resources at employees' homes. Investments will have to be made to include ergonomic desks and chairs to sit and work for a long duration just as in offices. Employees will have to be compensated for additional expenses at home. Examples include expenses for upgrading broadband access at home, increased electricity usage, and office-like printing capabilities. Engineering companies should start performing most of the process engineering work from remote as it is input to the rest of the engineering work. Many engineering activities can be performed remotely or be outsourced. Examples like dynamic surge analysis, thermal & mechanical design of heat exchangers, electrical system studies, sizing of control valves/safety valves, vendor drawing reviews are amongst those that can be effectively done remotely. It is time to plan some remote inspections and FATs etc. and prepare facilities accordingly at the fabrication shops.
Engineering Companies should have a strategy in place that mandates distributed work as a basic norm. This is not only a response to the current crisis, but it also makes economic sense with savings in office space that can translate into lower man-hour rates. We can follow the trends from a couple of decades back when even work sharing with low-cost centres used to be questioned but has now become a norm. Now is the time to include work from home/distance as the normal way of working.
With this change at engineering companies, operating companies will also have to make requisite changes in the operations of Process Plants. Adopting remote plant operation needs to be the new norm. Controls Centre locations will need to be away from the processing unit. In operations and maintenance, the use of AI is going to be an integral part of the plant of the future. Predictive maintenance assessment is going to be used more and more. Inclusion of the digital twin, where operational and maintenance data will be widely available with the click of the mouse, will need to be planned from the very beginning of the design. The use of robotics in operation & maintenance will need to be the norm for all new facilities soon.
As many cultures and traditions have noted, out of adversity comes opportunity. Leaders in Oil & Gas industry have immense pressure to first survive the COVID crisis. However, leaders who put together a plan for tackling our formidable challenges by readjusting and creating a new normal will turn this adversity into improvements. A digital shift has been forced upon us overnight. It is now the time to overcome our previous inertia and ensure that a large majority of the engineering workforce—if equipped well—can be productive working from anywhere.
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