Abstract
While central control rooms have been in use for industrial plants, pipelines, and drilling operations for many years, the BP Gulf of Mexico Production Advanced Collaborative Environment (GoMP ACE) is the first live environment to support production and startup operations across multiple assets. The ACE tackles the traditional onshore/offshore team culture and transforms it into a new virtual team that is not restricted by miles and bodies of water. The ACE implementations will increase BP operations efficiency and integrity management through enhanced onshore/offshore collaboration, cross-asset collaboration, faster response to critical situations, and proactive interventions. It is part of BP's FIELD OF THE FUTURE program in Gulf of Mexico (GoM), hosting and enabling most of the program's applications (1,4,) A number of ACE installations are taking place across BP globally, presenting valuable opportunities for shared learning in implementation and usage (5).
To achieve these benefits, a 50,000 square foot facility was designed to host collaboration areas within the permanent workspaces of more than 200 production operations support staff across various disciplines. The extensive technology inventory available to support the ACE includes a secure digital network that links the offshore platforms with eight onshore control rooms, 40 video-conference cameras, and an innovative matrixed display capability that routes real-time visualization of offshore data on any of the 200 plasma, LCD, or projection screens. In order to facilitate the two way conversations between the onshore and offshore teams, upgrades were also made to the collaboration facilities offshore.
The BP GoM ACE is not just about technology and workspaces – these are key enablers that drive processes and behaviors that enable a new organizational culture. A focused training and enrollment program was executed to accelerate learnings from other projects, build organizational alignment, and drive new multi asset behaviors. Communities of Interest and a recurring Pulse Check process with the resident teams have also been implemented to ensure that the model continues to evolve and adapt based on learnings over time or changing needs of the organization.
BP GoMP ACE Benefits include:
Reduced offshore people-on-board (POB) and fewer or eliminated trips offshore for a subset of activities
Culture evolution of field and office towards one virtual onshore/offshore asset team, with access to extended network of other assets and central engineering authorities
Reduced cycle times and better decisions faster from improved real-time data context and access to key resources
Standardized platform across assets to drive business unit consistency and implement additional FIELD OF THE FUTURE capability
Focus on continuous improvement to apply feedback and learnings towards enhancements and new capabilities
